I sit at the dining table, and the warm spring sun falls on an empty sheet of paper. I draw almost every day now. And no matter what I start to draw, I see myself in the end.
The day before yesterday, I was a tennis ball. A green one, with light lines wrapping around my body. Such balls are usually picked up by men in snow-white shorts. Those with strong hands and stressful jobs. They grab the ball, lift the racket, and swing it against the wall. Just to have fun and relax. “Stupid ball!” they shout if it does not fly straight back into their hands afterward. And then they hit it against the wall even harder.
Yesterday was better. I was a fish.…
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Announce the Morning. Yes
by going about Your day. Yes
raise Your well-rested Flesh,
dress It & take It to Café Colao.
Note the warmth in warmth.
Note the Sun & Clouds.
Note the Bus Driver & His
solemn, stoic face. Note
the patience it takes to wait
for the walk sign to turn white.
Note the Woman as You enter,
whose car has gone missing…
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“Katherine, I believe it’s important that we clarify your goals concerning these recurring dreams. Think of it as a springboard for the healing process, the starting point for our journey.”
Ten minutes into a fifty-minute hour, and Kat is already eyeing the door. Katherine Wyatt is not a person who seeks psychiatric help. Normal people don’t see shrinks, and normality is Kat’s calling card. Yet here she sits, chewing the end of her braid while Doctor Bramble smiles at her.
Fucksake, Kat, say something. The woman thinks you’re nuts. This is costing two hundred bucks an hour. Tell her about the damn dreams or leave.
Katherine drops her braid and forces herself to speak.
“Right, a starting point. Okay, Doctor Bramble. My life is completely ordinary.…
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When the school in Japan asked in her interview why she wanted to teach overseas, she didn’t give the real reason: that it had been an ear infection.
Her parents had rented a lake house for early July. The first day, water had gone into her ear and had stayed in, resisting head shakes and leg kicks. She was the oldest of four. When she was younger, relatives called her “Young Mother Hen” because she changed diapers, helped with homework, and, later, drove her brothers and sister to their practices and rehearsals, as if naturally inclined to cook mac and cheese for children and then play their chauffer, coveting no life for herself at seventeen.
“It still won’t come out?” her mother had asked.
Her neck had ached from the jerking.…
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Click: the door is locked
His mind unlocked
Watch him through the spyhole
Scratching at his skin
Biting his lips till they bleed
The only way he can feel
The only way to stay real
In the white room.
He knows he’s being watched
But he needs that prying eye
To stop himself imploding
To cling to outside things
No need for any mirrors
In this gaping space of ice
The shining happens inside him
In the white room.…
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Having spent 25 years running a quarter-scale steam engine, I’m only a tiny bit shocked to find myself sitting in one, steam rising from the hot boiler, my hand on the brake, ready to release it.
I try to piece together why I’m here, hard due to my failing memory—part of the natural progression they say, which is no comfort, believe me. The black, belching and drifting coal smoke, choking to most, is more nostalgic to me than disturbing.
This is not the first time I’ve forgotten where I am and why. I used to panic, running aimlessly, calling for help. But I’ve now come to treat it, after a moment’s fear, like a chronic sleepwalker must feel upon waking. All the other times, however, I was somewhere on the nursing home grounds, often looking for my wife, Janet, who nurses remind me has passed away.…
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I wandered the streets in a haze. For the first time in many months I moved about directionless, and without idea of where to find a cause to travel. So I simply moved, passing under street lights and swimming in the cold haze of night between their islands of effervescence. I glided through Shibuya, through Akihabara, and eventually into Minato. All the while awaiting a reason to move, a definable destination. Finally, I reached the Minato train station.
It was then that I saw the woman.
She had been standing by one of the pillars outside the terminal. She was dressed quite smartly, with a long brown coat opened to reveal a form fitting office skirt and a little crossover tie. She looked like she had dropped straight out of an eighties flick about some aspiring young girl who goes to the big city and meets the man of her dreams.…
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