The Offboarding Here is Brutal

I'm new here. 

They've asked me to teach a class, and I'm happy to do it. I know some of these folks, the students just as much as the professors. Everybody's friendly. Everybody's polite. Everybody's welcoming. It seems like a good fit. 

I can't get into the building on my own, though. My fingerprint hasn't been programmed into the little readers that pop up at every doorway on campus. 

They've given me a workaround for this problem. I've been using it for a little while, and so far, I can get into every room I've tried except the ladies' room.

I suppose that's because it's a man's hand. If they'd given me a lady's hand, everything would be right as rain. I'd be able to use the restroom without somebody else letting me in, and it wouldn't take up nearly as much room in my bag. 

 * Disclaimer/Reminder: These are all dreams. Or rather, nightmares. I've never had a dream that wasn't a nightmare, or at least nightmarish.

Impatience

 We had a little slice of life here, but there is more life waiting for us elsewhere. We must go. 

I think it's a house or an apartment, but something about it also says it's a workspace-a studio or an office. 

Whatever it is, I'm on my way out. I've been packing up my things and gathering the others to do the same. The cupboards are almost empty. The boxes are full. There are no cobwebs. 

We must leave it clean and ready for the next group. They'll be here any day, but we'll be long gone by then. 

Except, there are intruders lurking. They act like victims, but they are the offenders. They're pretending to be polite. I do not trust them. 

My intuition says they will invade as quickly as we vacate. So we must not vacate. 

I have taken to screaming like an impatient toddler who doesn't get their way. If I had my druthers, we would be on the road, pointed toward the next big thing. Somebody's waiting for us on the other end, but I can't have my druthers. 

One of these lurkers is also vandalizing. and I'm scrambling right behind them to clear away the graffiti and the mess. It's so important to leave it perfect. We can't leave until it's perfect.

(screaming inside) Screaming Outside. 

Containment is Often Confused with Control

 Always with the fish tanks--contained chaos.

And this time I didn't feed them. Ever. 

The big ones started eating the little ones, as fish will do. But when that no longer sufficed, they began to watch the world beyond the tanks with their intelligent eyes.

The yellow cockatiel perched on the lip of the tank, and that was the end of it. Once the red cleared away, I could see the feathers settled on the bottom. 

The blue cockatiel witnessed the bloody event and spent too much time flying around the room, teasing and torturing the starving predators. Swooping in almost, just almost within attacking distance.

He should have known the fish were adaptive. They studied him as he circled the rim, and all the while they were learning how to fly. 

In the Waking Hours I Know My Name is Nessa

My name is gone from my mind. I had it before I came here, but now that I need it, it seems to have fallen away -- like a dead leaf from a hibernating tree. 'Tis the season of forgetfulness.

Forgetful-ness. Forgetful Ness. There's something so familiar about that, but I can't recall what it should be.

I'm staring at this stranger who's staring right back at me, expectantly. I mumble something, but even I do not understand what I mean to say. She cocks her head, raises an eyebrow, and leans in as if the inches between us are causing the confusion. 

The cold wind blows. More memories fall away. I can almost see them, just for a few seconds, flitting away, tumbling across my timeline, dissipating into the emptiness. Flames flickering into ash.

Shit.

Well, at least that word is clear in my head. I haven't forgotten language altogether. I try to say it to my curious reflection, but she, too, has evaporated. 

This is worrisome. I lift my hands and stare at my fingers. They seem resolute. I wiggle them. I feel them. I am not fading away like everything else around here. I am solid and strong and loud and bold.

The freezing gusts slice into me like blades of ice. I stand against it. I turn to face it, and even though it takes all my strength to find my voice and bring it into my throat, I howl my name into the mighty darkness. 

The sound brings light and the light brings color and the color ripples through the memories, through the leaves of my life, printing words on every page and singing every song. 

I inhale light. I exhale warmth.

I know who I am now. I am Olivia, Forgetter of Names.

Trip to Mars

 After all that, we still make it to the plane.

We are hurried and exhausted and relieved and looking forward to sitting down in relative comfort. Does anybody else see that this flight is not full?

I guess the others didn't make it through with us.

I'm not sure where we're going. Somebody says Australia. Somebody else says no, it's London. I'm disappointed. I'd rather go somewhere I've never been. Ireland. South Africa. Mars.

Isn't it odd the way people speak more when there are fewer people to receive it? Small talk for small groups. 

I listen to the chatter across seats, across aisles, across rows. These two are married. This one is alone. Those over there are all friends. I'm with some folks from work. The pilot misses his wife.

You wanna know who's on this flight? That guy. He's about five rows back sitting across the aisle from a woman from my office, chatting it up with her one-year-old baby. I can hear the softness in his voice, but I don't look back to see the laughter in his eyes. 

Somebody has texted me, but I can't make out the words.

Ready to launch, someone says. I should strap in, but I can't find my seatbelt. Let me find another seat. Don't take off yet, I'm not safe.

The aisle is cluttered with laundry, packed full so nobody can walk. I have to climb over the seats and eventually I must walk over the laundry, which is putrid and mushy, like a swamp. My bare feet disappear into the piles. It's so difficult to make any progress. I notice there are no snakes.

Hurry up, we need to go, they urge me to find a seat. I move to the back and sit next to the baby. Her mother has disappeared. She is not secured either, so I try to help, and I wonder why she brought this baby, but not the rest of her family. I can't remember the baby's name, so I make one up. Shh, Lily, let's buckle up. She's not a difficult child, but I am not the one she wants. 

That guy says the mother is gone. She fell out the back of the bus.

Did you say bus? We're on a plane. We're going to Mars. 

He gets a text, and I wonder who's texting him right now? We've got other things to worry about. I glance over, but I can't make out the words. I don't think he can either. I realize I've lost my phone. It must be in the other seat. 

Somebody at the front of the bus starts to sing. I know the song. We all sing as we push through a long dark tunnel. The baby cries, but when I turn to soothe her, she has already fallen out the back of the bus. 

Exodus

 Listen, lady, I'd love to help but I don't work here. 

I can tell by her expression she's not going to take that for an answer. She sighs and asks me again to get her a monsaco, all she wants is a simple monsaco.

I don't know what that is, and I'm late for checkout. I'm a guest here, lady, just like you.

Perhaps she is a little touched with dementia? I think it. I don't say it, but her friend pipes up and asks me why I can't just help her. Just go back there (wherever there is) and get this woman a monsaco! (Socialized dementia?) 

I try to say I don't have the authority to go back there. I'm limited to the guest areas, and I'm late. I don't want to be rude, but I haven't packed yet, and checkout is happening now. 

She wants to speak to the manager. The real manager. 

I'm not sure why I'm still standing here, polite, softspoken, and late for checkout. I need to pack, and we all know how it goes when you need to pack, and you're late, and you're probably depending on somebody else to also pack their things, and they aren't even aware that it's time to checkout.

When I get back to the room, I think, man oh man, this is going to take forever. Why would I even bring this much stuff with me to a hotel? Like I had planned to move in and live here forever. There are things in drawers and under the bed, and I'm not sure if this is mine or my roommate's. This stuff is not going to fit in the one suitcase. I might need extra bags.

Or maybe throw some stuff away? Leave this shit behind. I don't need it, and it's holding me back. I gotta get outta this  place. 

I have done all I can do here. Why did I stay this long?

What was I thinking? What was I thinking? What was I thinking? 

The Purification Cycle

 Choppers. (woosh, woosh, woosh)

We got 'em, and I'm feeling a bit chopped up today.

You shove me, skin and bones and everything in between, into your chopping machine and set it to puree. You let me marinate in my own self-loathing, self-doubt, self-destruction.

Self-incarnation.

or...not self-incarnation.

Reincarnation says it better, I think. 

You reincarnate me by pouring me into your cute little mold and setting me into the icebox.

You open the door and look at me every once in a while to see if I've solidified. Or maybe you see past me, toss me around a bit until you find something else you desire. Something just beyond me. Something store-bought and easy. Something that wasn't so much hard work. 

I think I'd rather be poured down the drain than into your molds. I'd rather swim through the sludge and the darkness than to be trapped here until you decide it's time for a tasty snack. I'd like to change my own shape as I move along, not to satisfy anyone else, but to adapt to my path. 

I'd rather endure the harsh and putrid stench of so many hidden passages, seeking escape at the other end, the freedom of spilling out into a pool of all the other light seekers, finding a calm and level world where the slime and the scum evaporate into a fantastic nothingness, and I can purify into myself once again. 

Self-satisfaction, self-empowerment, self-incarnation.

The room with all the fish tanks

First of all, there are too many fish tanks back here.  They are probably left over from when my mother decided to collect aquatic animals. She's never done a damned thing by halves.

Wall to wall and all different sizes. There are more than a hundred and all arranged like a maze. I wander between them. I'm not sure where the light comes from. 

I like to stare at the swimmers with their different shapes and colors, but they don't seem to care for it one bit. They bump their noses against the glass, trying to get at me. Some of of them are pissed enough they're smashing themselves into bloody messes. Some of them are spitting.

I guess I'm meant to care for them. Feed them, keep their walls clean, don't let them eat each other.

It's not that easy, though, when one of the damn things grows at an exponential rate and flops right out of his tank and into the next one with his multiple rows of giant, razor teeth gnashing away at whatever it lands on. 

And this other one, the one that looks like a giant earthworm has big, brown, thorny teeth. It flops about as well, but takes a little care to preselect his victims. I suppose he must go by smell. He hasn't got any eyes.

The water splashes all over me, and now I smell just like them, and that's no good because there's not enough time to sort out how to avoid the earthworm. He has preselected my left arm. (I am left-handed. I need that arm.) He latches on with his big thorns deep in the fleshy part, right over the scar I got when I was twelve and I burned myself with hot oil while cooking french fries for the siblings. 

Let me believe there's no pain, I tell myself. And I must be a magic person, because there is no pain. There is just my arm and the fish. 

And all the teeth. Those are definitely there. 

I raise my other arm up to cover my eyes just so they don't betray me into thinking there must be pain after all. If I can't see it, I can't feel it.

And that's all there is to that.

This isn't the dream I selected

This is not my dream. It belongs to somebody else. It buzzes against my skull trying its damnedest to get out of there as I have a look around at a world I've never seen before.

These strangers and I are packed together in this slow car, and the cars are packed together in this roadway, and all we want to do is get the hell away from the explosions.

Even the smoke is packed. Thick and hot, almost solid. 

Methodically, we all push forward, and every once in a while we must hop out and actually push the cars through the mud and the muck. All together now. Heave! All together now. Ho!

Watch out for the little ones. It's so hard to see them once they are covered in mud. Big eyes blink up at me from below. I pluck her up and tuck her into the hatchback. Not really safe and not really sound. But it's what we got.

These are not my people.

This is not my language.

But I understand plenty. 

A mama is screaming in one of the other cars. It's the car that's trying to edge past ours as we go around the corners. We let it through. There is a boy who is bleeding in the back seat. 

Get out and help! Hurry now, we are all crying, even though it doesn't help. I can't be sure, but I think some of us are also praying. 

Is he dead? Is that bleeding boy dead?

Of course not. Of course not. You stop bleeding when you die. 

This is not my nightmare.

I tell somebody this is not my world.

Hey, I don't belong here. I shouldn't be here.

But they can't understand me. This is not their language.

And I am certain they do not care where I belong, because I am here now, and we need to push through the sludge and the smoke.

All together now. Heave! All together now. Ho!

Cross Words

Some plumbing or other seems to always be clogged, and that's the biggest thing I'll recall later, but right now...

Right now, it's the bathtub. Only, it's not filled with water like normal. Nothing's backing up, and nothing's swirling around my ankles as expected. It's just stuffed with various pieces of firewood and newspapers. Bone dry.

And something else about the newspaper, I think somebody was trying to read it to me earlier, but he couldn't read it, and I tried on my own, but that wasn't working out either. Shame. I'd really like to settle down and do the crossword.

I'm not dressed yet, but somebody's banging on the door. I think it's one of the siblings. Or maybe the landlord. (Do I have a landlord?) And that reminds me of the line in that old Metallica song that came out when I was fifteen.

"Power wolves beset your door / hear them stalking" 

Am I 15 again? Is that why the siblings are here? Am I late for work? Am I late for school? Are the siblings late for school? Did I do my homework? Did they eat breakfast? Are they even dressed yet? Do I have money for gas? 

SHIIIIT!!!!!

Later, my mother would make a big damn deal of babysitting my kids. She'd tell her friends about the sacrifice she was making for me, for my kids, so I could get to work every day and hold down a job and get the rent paid, because, let's face it, I couldn't do it without her help.

She was right, but let's talk about when I was fifteen.

Just Stay Dead

No keys.

No access.

I know I paid the rent, but...no keys.

I didn't even get my stuff moved in. And nobody's around to help me. 

Correction. Nobody's around to do it for me. I need to get to work. But I can't get to work because...no car, no keys.

Can a girl get a fuckin' break?

If I press my face to the glass and stand just the right way I can see into the apartment. Or the house. Or the hotel room. I can't really tell what it is at this point, and it doesn't really matter because...no fucking keys.

I'm legit, y'all. It's okay to let me in. I got the job I can't get to so I can pay for the house I can't get into and drive the car I can't remember where I parked. With all my stuff in it, too. 

All my stuff I collected on my way to becoming legit.

If I press my face to the glass and stand just the right way I can scream at the top of my lungs, and the glass will shatter into a spiderweb pattern and I'll be able to push against it...just like that. 

Now that I'm in, this place is different than I remember. I shouldn't remember it at all. This is a new place with all the new potential for a different kind of life. But the carpet is so familiar. (Why did I pick a place with carpet? I hate carpet.) Bright red with a wrinkle right up the middle of the room because somebody hired their drunk cousin to install it. 

And there are extra rooms. With beds already in them, and family members I was so sure had passed away. 

And I had been happy they passed away. (I guess that makes me a bad person.)

Here they are, though, laughing it up. Ha ha. That was a funny fucking joke. 

They're all moved in and comfy cozy in my shithole apartment. The plumbing's backing up and the soupy brown water is swirling around with bits and chunks gathering up here and there. 

And there are snakes, of course.

and I can't get out.

No keys.

Crossover

I'm back at work, and the inbox is overflowing. It's not my normal box. Somebody's replaced it while I wasn't looking with something bigger, but I'm sure I can get through this pile if I just focus. I can hear Tennille's voice saying, "This is what you get for leaving all your vacations to the last minute."

And I guess it is. She's not trying to be mean, but Tennille's no sugar-coater.

And there's a new guy. I think I should know him. Curly hair, glasses, wrinkly shirt, scruffy face. So familiar, yet so out of place. I am hyper-aware that he's there.

I don't have time to think about it though, because there's so much work to do, and there's a meeting in a few minutes and I have to make the rounds and say hi to everyone and give out hugs and let everybody know that I didn't really go anywhere for my vacation because I was at school the entire time, and there were so many events and meetings and ceremonies there, and I'm really happy to be back at work so I can relax a little.

There's cake and coffee in the meeting room.

And that guy--the scruffy one, the one I know from somewhere else--he's in the meeting room too. I want to say something to him. I want to find out why he's there instead of in the other place I know him from, but I never get the chance. People are filing in, and the room fills with chatter as everybody finds a seat so we can start the meeting, and my phone starts to sneeze. That's what it does when I have a text, you know. It sneezes a couple of times, and I wake up.

Priorities

I don't know whose child this is.

Probably somebody will come looking for him. Maybe. In a minute some frantic mother will come screaming his name desperately, and she will be so relieved to find him hanging out with me, unharmed, laughing, and I'll just hand him right over, because I really have more important things to do than keep up with anybody else's kid.

Papers to write, team members to review, surveys to read, oil to change...

It's not like I can go anywhere anyway, because the floor actually is made of lava, and this little booger-eater has stolen my lava-proof flip-flops and is strutting around all pleased with himself. He thinks he's cute, but those are my favorite flip-flops.

Where is your mother, kid?

Okay, I guess you can sit with me. We'll cozy up together until whoever misplaced you comes to find you. We'll point at passersby and pretend we're on a spaceship, and if we're good, really really good, we'll find some ice cream.

What else have I got to do?

I know what's mine.

I remember freedom now.

I had forgotten about it somehow. Perhaps it's because I'm the only one left in this place who's ever seen it. I put it out of my mind, having lost hope to retrieve it. Perhaps it was because I knew I could ignore captivity if I didn't have anything to compare it to. If there's no such thing as the Light, how can there be a Darkness? and if there's no such thing as Darkness, then how can I be in it?

So I forgot about it. It was the only way to survive the madness we have here.

But here it is. Freedom is on the other side of this thick wall of glass. I was never meant to be here. I was never meant to see this. I was never meant to know that the world had gone on just as usual all those years before we'd been corralled and stuffed into this controlled existence.

I can see it going on still, but I can't touch it. 

I watch it like a surreal television show. (I remember television, too; that's how old I am.) I watch the people and the cars moving about on their own. Nobody's telling them how to line up. Nobody's telling them where to go or what to do. Nobody's stopping them from doing it. I watch it like I used to watch war documentaries. It was something that didn't affect me. I didn't have to participate back then, so I never let it bother me.

But it bothers me now. The memories ignite and explode inside me like fireworks lighting my way. I want to be free again. I want to be out there, on the other side of the glass with my face to the stars and feel the night breeze chill my skin, and I want to have goosebumps. 

I want to be afraid of my own decisions, and I want to feel the courage of making them anyway.

I don't know how I'll do it, but I'm about to start a war, and it will affect everybody in this place..

It's only business.

This place has a lot of beds and no windows.

I can hear The Others outside the door, down the hall, laughing it up like everything's going to work out, and I guess it is. Everybody seems so happy.

There's a pizza place down the road. We saw it on the way in, and everybody seemed in agreement that it was the next stop after this stop. Just needed to do a little bit of business first. The proprietor in this place pays big bucks for quality merchandise.

Somehow I know I'll never set foot in that pizza place.

I'm being left behind with no last meal.

And no windows.

We Let the Damned Thing In

     We’d thought the floods were bad, but they were just the beginning. We traipsed through the mud for days, pulling out random objects as we came upon them. The mud pulled back, and, depending who was stronger, or perhaps who wanted it more, our precious belongings were released with a loud sucking smack, back into our possession. We gathered, and we thought about rebuilding, but…

     Who’s in charge here?

     I am.

     Is there anyone better?

     That rubs me the wrong way. He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know what I’m capable of accomplishing. What’s the point of asking for somebody better? To insult me? To doubt me? To anger me?

     I’m all you got.

     I would have shrugged and left it at that if not for the scene behind his silhouette. Four black spires twisting on the horizon, connecting cloud to earth.

     Into the house we race. The big ones are carrying the little ones when they trip and fall. Some are shouting, some are crying, and all are hoping the wickedness lifts itself up and passes us by without a glance. Of course, none of us believes that will happen. We know all too well we are not immune to tragedy. So into the house we go, and as far down as we can get to escape the curling, creeping fingers of destruction. 

     Destruction comes in many forms, though, and he stands silently in the corner while we pray for safety. He lurks in the darkness of a dank and dirty basement and leers at the unsuspecting children, counting potential corpses.

The plumbing never works in those old houses.

That old, condemned house again.

I don't like the looks of the left leg, so I think I'll trim it down a little.

It's easy, see, just a little pressure right there, and a slice.
The problem there is that it's lopsided now, so I'll take a little from the right leg.

Hold these bones, sister, while I try to get this just perfect.

I'll have to do this side right-handed. The left hand won't reach around.

Dammit.

Guess I'll just have to do away with both legs below the knee, for balance. And a little off each thigh. The thighs have always been too thick.

I have no idea who clogged the bath tub.

You've really got to get your demons under control.

It thrives in darkness.

It grows and sings and dances in the shadows, and quite by accident, it finds you there. It likes you. It makes you its lover.

You like the firm grip it has on you. It feels an awful lot like support, security, strength.

You dance with it.

And the grip loosens and changes into a caress that slinks its way around your skin, around your bones, around your eyes.

And you are blind to everything else.

And it's so cool.

Too cool really, and you shiver.

and it doesn't like that.

and it recoils just long enough that you  can see it for the slimy, disgusting thing it is and you try to escape.

All you need is light to rid yourself of it, because of the way it lives. You eliminate shadows. You remove all things with a dark side. You cast a glow onto everything around you until there is only you and the bright, blinding light, and there can be no chance that it's lurking around now. There is no darkness here.

It must be gone.

There is no place for it to go.

Unless...

Unless it found it way into the only dark place left.

The place inside you.

I heard about it in a dream, so it must be true.

I found out later they'd been watching you on camera, because of the rumors.

What rumors?

And if they were watching you, that means they had to also be watching me.

But I hadn't heard any rumors...

And you'd been searching for every one of my tattoos. (Even the ones nobody else knows about.)

And we'd gone grocery shopping together.

And I guess that's pretty exciting.

All that has been done

I'm so cold.

I know I'm cold for a reason. I'm cold because I don't deserve to be warm.  I'm colder than I've ever been, and the winter seems like a furnace around me.

Each time a snowflake drifts down from the gray and lands on my bare, bloody skin, it sizzles and blisters me.

But I don't disturb the tranquility. I lie there, unmoving, unresponsive.

They seem so peaceful, those burning white flakes, silently covering every inch. I see one, and then two, and then five, and then five thousand.

They blanket me in silence.

I do not protest.

I must merit this fiery hell.

Soon enough, I will be covered in white. The winter will blanket my body and my blood and my sins, and nobody will be able to see me for the insignificant creature I must be.

I'll be hidden from all that has been done, and I pray that all that has been done will be hidden from me.