Elocin Press

Ghost the cat woke me by tucking herself into my left side. I was sleeping on my back.  We were in a sweet cuddle and I soon fell into a deep sleep. In my mind I could see myself and the cat as we were. While I was envisioning this, I had a dream that I was in another room of the house asleep on my back with Ghost tucked into my side. Two hummingbirds flew in through the window. They had black wings with golden edges that shimmered. One hummingbird hung in the air to my left above Ghost and the other flew over me and put its bill in my right ear. My head shook violently. The two visual layers separated—the visual awareness of where I actually was and the dream me in the other room with my dream cat and the hummingbirds with the black wings and golden edges. Only the dream me remained. I wondered where my phone was. I wanted to take a picture, but I did not want to disturb the birds by moving my hand. The last thing I wanted was for them to go away.

When we went to SFMOMA a few years ago there was a René Magritte exhibit. I was familiar with his work but it took on a new meaning since I’ve been practicing lucid dreaming and dream yoga. His paintings became a magical practice, an act of bringing the dream world into the waking world as we bring the waking world into the sleeping. A meditation. A bridge. To practice making things larger. To multiplying the one into the many. To breaking our understanding of what is possible. Turning the light on in ourselves. The mind bright. We are all dreaming.

Driving down a two-lane curvy highway. To our right is thick green bush then steep drop and valley below. To our left is the town. Emily drives my car. She doesn’t look much older than the last time I saw her. I’m in the passenger seat. Natalie is behind me. Sullen. Picking at her nails. We drive by the high school. It’s the last day. It’s a pale yellow building. Yellowing grass. Picnic tables. Stacks of balloons gathered and waiting to be released. Mostly white balloons with some dark red between the white. Very round. A party in waiting. No kids yet. They are still inside. It’s so quiet. The breeze ruffles the tablecloths. We cruise by. It’s so effortless the way we are moving. Looking in the rearview mirror, I say, “I like the balloons.”

 Emily opens the sky window and stands as the car keeps moving. I unbuckle and stand. The air presses on us. The car takes care of itself. We pass the elementary school on our left. A small brick building. Parents are setting out cups and games. The kids are still inside. Emily’s mom is there. On the grass. She’s holding a stack of paper cups. She watches as we pass. I sit back down, buckle in, reach over and guide the car. Emily sits down and takes the wheel. I ask, “How did you fare during the pandemic?” Emily says she was fine. I say, “Mia did okay.” Natalie from the back, still picking at her fingernails, shoulders hunched, says, “Don’t ask me. I didn’t do so great.”

Bright white bland bathroom. The emptiness of it keeps expanding. The pedestal sink. The tub. Blank walls. Gray cheap laminate floor. It’s so clean it’s without life. A large man opens the door to my left while I sit on the toilet. He’s all that matters now. His anger is vibrant, overwhelming. Something is finally happening. The bathroom is alive now, but in the wrong way. He is the father of my daughter’s boyfriend. The wife follows the husband into the room. She’s picking at the dry flakey skin of her bottom lip. Faded red lipstick blurs the edges of her mouth. They walk through the bathroom, scanning the floor, the corners. It’s as if they don’t see me here on the toilet. I say, “You can’t do this.” I pull up my pants. Flush. I go out, calling my daughter’s name. She can explain this. My husband, walking toward me in the hallway, holds up his arm, showing me his wrist. “They took my watch.” It’s been replaced with something large and bulky. We want his watch back. I go looking for the angry man. If I have to violently take the watch back, I will. He’s coming toward me. The hallway seems so narrow now. The wife, behind him, small and uncertain. They are still looking for something on the ground. I want them to look up. To see me. But they scan the white carpet. I call out, “Make his mouth disappear!” It disappears. He doesn’t like that. His mouth comes back. I call out, “Make his eyes disappear!” Nothing happens. “His hair!” Gone. “Mouth!” Gone, but his hair returns. Hair. Ears. Nose. Mouth. Things go away only to return. Except his eyes, I can never get rid of his eyes. I’m cycling through his features, going as fast as I can. Mouth. Hair. Ears. Nose. Everything gets tangled and suffocates. He and his wife, concerned about his face, stop searching for what they came here for.

He eats at the table alone. A bowl of cereal. Bent over, head dipped down, neck curved, the bones of his spine like knuckles in a fist. I don’t know how he gets out. But here he is like this always in the early morning light. The gray slant of it. There’s no yellow shine of breaking day. Just gray, white, silver-blue light that hits the surface of the counter, the table, the floor, breaking open only itself, making it hard to see.

Every night I put this boy to bed behind the wall. We can’t have him walking around alone at night while we sleep. I tell him that we do this because of my insomnia. He says nothing. Just eats his cereal. The white milk dripping off the spoon, back into the bowl.

Walking through a strange cramped apartment hallway. Clean white walls. Everything seems strange. Everything is shifting. I look around and it all alters as I move. Getting smaller, then larger, then closer, then farther. The floors are made of fir and such a pretty brown. An apartment door to my left is slightly open. I peek inside as I pass. Dark brown leather work boots with long thin curved laces. My body is moving without me. I have no intention.

I am in a bedroom. It is very dark. The blue curtains are pulled down over the window. It is daytime. Some of the light from outside filters in as the breeze flutters the curtains.

I am sitting on the bed. I remember that I want to taste something while I am here. I ask for an apple. I snap the fingers of my left hand and hold my palm open. A sort of apple appears. It is only partially there. It has a round top on the right side but that is all. It isn’t red like I wanted. What I can see of it is gray. I close my eyes. “When I open my eyes, there will be a red apple in my hand.” I open my eyes. What was gray is now red but most of the apple is still missing. I ask for an orange. In my hand appears four small pieces of a tiny orange. I taste them. There’s no sweetness. No juice. I ask for a cucumber and get tiny gherkins not yet pickled. I remember that I want to rub my hands together and just as I am about to touch, I am pulled out of that place and wake up here.