ANOTHER MOTHER DREAM

Dream: I’m going to stay overnight at my mother’s house, after a period of estrangement. (Actually, the house in the dream is my grandmother’s, two doors down, but it’s my mom inside).

It’s getting dark out. The lights in the house are on.

Someone (Leroy?) is letting himself in to the Hocker house next door. I wave hello to him. He waves back. I’m waiting on the opposite side of Allen Street for traffic to subside, so I can cross to my destination.

The Hodgnoski house, to my left, is overflowing with pink roses. I can see them over the wood fence around the small triangular yard. I know the yard is all paved over with concrete, but that doesn’t occur to me in the dream. I feel a covetous pang. It would be nice to live with roses.

I finally cross. My mom is standing at the window, watching me intently through half-shut blinds. She is till angry.

I’m carrying a briefcase full of work. I realize that I’ve forgotten to bring any clothes, toothbrush, etc.

I climb the three stone steps, reach into my pants pocket for the key. It’s on a ring with many others, noticeably smaller than the rest. When I turn it in the lock, the end of it mostly breaks off, but I can both get the lock open and pull the damaged key back out.

My mother does not move from her spot at the window. I stand there on the step, not going in, staring at the broken key in my hand.


-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

DEAD FRIENDSHIP DREAM

The Dream, by de Chavannes

***

Last night I dreamed about you. These days I don’t let thoughts of you stay long when I’m awake.

You had a new wife. She was obviously stupid, but then, she’d have to be. Of course, she knew nothing about me.

You’d been through some terrible experience that left you like a child, brain damaged, blank. Your house was a remote cabin. Your son was waiting for you to attend to something, but I’m not sure you knew who he was -- though he was a child again, too.
He was more open now, no longer cooler than everybody.

You sat on the floor in the middle of the living room, naked from the waist down. No one thought this strange. I was floating through the air as usual. No one thought this odd either.

Your wife kept patting your shoulder, muttering mindless stuff meant to comfort you. You were oblivious. You babbled nonsense, baby-talk.

You were no longer who you were. I felt the loss of that, and let myself. You seemed somewhat defenseless, but I couldn’t bring myself to punish you, though I remembered you deserved it. I just kept floating around, watching.

Your son and wife, who didn’t know each other, didn’t seem to find all this the least dramatic.

I woke up, and felt mometarily sad. I usually don’t let myself feel sad about you long; I didn’t this time, either. But I didn’t jump back into hating you right away, like I normally would, now that you’re less real to me than the dream was. A dream is your only unguarded path for getting near me now.

I am beginning to be less afraid you’ll try some other path. And I am less inclined to mentally rehearse the moves I’d have to use to shoot you down.


-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

SISTER EMANUEL’S CONVENIENCE STORE TRIP

(photo by Doris Ullman, 1930)


A nun entered the convenience store. The clerk on duty quickly hid his hard core porno magazine.

She glimpsed it before it went under the counter. Inwardly, she cursed her curiosity. Trying to weed out one’s interest in sex, she thought, is like trying to find zebras under a microscope. Once again, the colors of her habit made her think of zebras, not the penguins of cliché. She pictured a stampede of tiny zebras on a slippery glass strip, a doctor finding zebras in a teardrop.

She bought band-aids, Ben Gay, and Gatorade.

Her mind filled with things miscellaneous: pyramids and ceiling fans, tattoos and powdered wigs, fists and French kisses. The porn glimpse had triggered her imagination.

As she passed through the front door she saw the cover of a tabloid, with the photo of a frat boy in a wedding dress beneath the words, PLEDGE STUNTS. She silently thanked God they hadn’t made him wear a habit. Then she smiled, despite herself, at that last image.

In her mind, to chastise her, a mushroom cloud appeared behind the crosses three on Calvary.

Some fears are bigger than God.


-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any manner without the author's written permission.