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..