The dream had been wonderful, yet it would never be real. All property already let. Already sold. Already gone.
"Renting or buying?" The neat young executive type, sipping his coffee next to me, pointed at the property paper. I'd been looking for 6 months and it was killing me.
"It's murder." I shifted to give him space to sit, and sighed. "I own a small shit hole I've got to get out of. You an Estate Agent?"
"No, but these guys will get you somewhere to rest your bones…" My gaze followed his finger to a small ad tucked under...
My grandma had this incredible house. Like one of the ones you see in movies. Like, this is going to be a really crazy example, but did you ever see "The Tigger Movie"? Like Winnie the Pooh. There's this part where they're in the attic and I always remember wishing we had an attic with all that cool old stuff to explore in our house. Then I found Grandma's attic and I knew I'd hit something special! There was actually a stand-up mirror covered in a sheet and a few large trunks full of old clothes! So great.
I think...
Sandy was impressed. Her son, John, had never thrown a ball back like that before - so hard and fast that it bypassed her completely and flew over the wall at the bottom of the small garden they shared. "Nice one, Johnny!" she yelled. "Let me go and get it, I'll be right back!"
She yanked open the wooden gate recessed into the red brick wall and entered the narrow alleyway at the back of her house - and all the other houses like it. She looked left and right and spotted the ball rolling away from her, towards the...
I stood on tiptoe to see what the catcalls and commotion were about. "Let her breathe!" someone shouted. "Get a room!" called a tall man next to me. I watched the jubilation, the adoration, with partial mortification. The people around pushed and jostled as the couple became the sideshow.
"Don't let go," my mother said, squeezing my hand tightly in hers.
I preferred her hand to the passion going on above me. The clutch of bodies surged ahead, straining to see. The couple was quickly forgotten as the crowd's attention was captivated by the parade ahead, passion finding another outlet.
She didn't look at him.
"So that's my answer, is it?" He stared at her, hoping, praying for - well, anything. Any kind of response. A show of emotion.
She didn't look at him.
"Fine. If - if that's how it is, if that's - fine." He wanted the weight to lift from his shoulders, now that he knew the truth, he wanted something to happen, some kind of change - he wanted to feel something.
There was nothing. He was numb. He wasn't even angry, he just felt cold.
"So I'll be going then."
Her back was to him...
She found the key on the internet.
It seemed silly, a little, to buy a physical and tangible thing like that to open up a locked trunk in a dream. But it was necessary, she was sure. She'd been trying to get into the trunk in the bedroom of the house of doors - the house she returned to over and over again in her lucid dreams - for years. For as long as she could remember.
The trunk, solid and wooden, banded with brass and locked. It was impenetrable. She'd tried peering through the keyhole, picking the lock, everything....
They were listening.
"Have you noticed the children?"
"What about them?"
"They seem different, don't they? Since we moved here?"
"Hush. They'll hear you."
"They're all the way upstairs. They can't hear."
They were listening.
"Yes. Yes, I've noticed."
"Timmy asked me about strangulation today."
"What?!"
"You know. And Sally..."
"Yes. The, um. The incident with the-"
"The knife. Where did she get it? She can't reach the counters."
"I don't know."
"Something is wrong here, Susan. Something terrible."
"Dammit, John, these are our CHILDREN..."
"Are they? Are they, though? Look at their eyes, next time."
"What do we do?"...
I'm awake but my eyes are stuck closed. What times is it? 7:30, am I reading this right? I should't be surprised, I haven't been able to sleep past 8am since I turned 30. Suck.
It's a Tuesday, my Monday.
Two clients: one with big expectations and another with big confusions.
Trying to launch my first iPhone App as a side project.
Need to get back to working on my own startup company.
The ocean pulls me to surf, the rocks pull me to climb.
But today is a "work" day, which essentially means that it will be lumped into...
Travel light, but take everything with you. Words that my grandmother used to say in wisdom. And words that I've never take to heart till now. The twister ripped though our neighborhood and everything I owned was taken with it. My Children and wife stand now where our Kitchen was. With a heavy sigh, I remember those words my Grandmother used to say, I truly have all I need standing in the kitchen.
I had a dream the other night. We were sitting alone in our rooms, all of us, every single one, when suddenly —
The walls just fell away. There was no sound, no pyrotechnics; with a quiet resignation, all the matter in the world, except for our warm, breathing bodies, fell down into the void, leaving us floating purposelessly, naked.
And we all looked at each other, as the psychic frameworks that we etched into the streets, into our homes – our routines, our beaten paths, all the conventions that existed not in the world, but in the world as...