So many dreams lately I thought I should start sharing them:
Early September
Lying down next to my friend's body, naked to the waist. I trace a series of inch long scars that run across his stomach like a basting stitch. He tells me they were from having the coins removed. He flips over onto his stomach. His back is a yellowed, antique map of the old world. Coins rest under his skin, glowing. There are large collections of coins over certain places: Portland, Serbia. When I touch a coin small arrows fly through his skin to point at my finger, protecting the gold coin. His back is layered like an unfinished quilt. Coins have worked their way to the edges of his skin and out of his body. The coins are burdensome and hurt him.
Monday, September 12
I'm sorting through 50 cent pieces to show my friend. They are all different shapes and sizes -- more like small, antiquated icons than coins; different faces of people, squares, windows, different metals, antiqued and worn, pristine and shiny.
Wednesday, September 14
I'm hugely pregnant and in labor. After really great progression the labor suddenly ceases. I can't push the baby out. My belly is taught as a rock, but no matter how I push, squat or walk I can't get the baby to move. I don't feel particularly down hearted or distraught. I just have a sense that something is going to have to change to move forward.
Thursday, September 15
I'm at an artist's colony retreat in a giant, old manor house. We break down into small groups to brainstorm and create a collective visual piece. Some one has drawn a giant gown and I want to create a little doorway inside of it. The doorway would open up to reveal an intricately detailed room in a Victorian house. In the center of the room a gaunt, overly kept, almost zombiefied woman screaming to be let out. I'm embarrassed that I'm not talented enough to execute my idea. I leave my group and walk into the galley kitchen with a huge mirror at the end. I see infinite reflections as if there is another mirror behind me. The reflections begin to move independently. I scream for help and an older woman takes me by the shoulders. She leads me away and tells me very practically that I just need to be confident. "Right," I say, "it's my job."
Wednesday, September 21
A huge fireball in the sky. A small plane crashing in the field behind me cabin. I lock the doors to the house I grew up in so someone dangerous can't get in. I close windows against the thunderstorm. I call 911 but I can't dial the phone -- I dial 914a. I finally manage to connect and they tell me people have already called the plane crash in. Friends are in the house with me. She says someone is trying to get in and leads us to the huge window over the long radiator in the dining room. There is a tall kitty sitting between the glass and the screen. It is his cat.
Friday, September 23
My mouth is coated from sleeping. I look into my mouth in the bathroom mirror and it looks like a cave. Crystals cover my tounge, palate and throat -- white and milky like sufurous growths. I fill a tank -- maybe a trashcan or the tank on a humidifier. I drink the water as it leaks out of the cracks in the plastic. The water is dirty. The stalactite from my palate breaks off and I swallow it. I started pulling growths out of my tonsils. They look like cartoonish enlargements of bacterial cells -- spherical discs covered with perfectly spaced bumps. When I look in the mirror again I am an Asian man.
Sunday, October 9
I'm in a hospital clinic with several other people, waiting to be treated. A woman begins to convulse, foam, complain of headaches and vomit. The doctors chase her down the hall and bring her back into the clinic room. We scatter out of the way. It becomes clear that we are trapped in the room and that her illness is a ruse. She is a serial killer. She takes a baby from someone's arms and cuts off it's pinky toe. She eats the toe to show her intentions.
