Category Archives: dream journal

written upon waking

DREAM #1

30 or 40 years into the future. I am a cub reporter for a large newspaper, maybe the NYTimes or The Guardian, walking into a darkened overfilled, high-floor conference hall to await an announcement by the mayor. Entrance to the hall is a spiral ramp with no railings suspended over the commercial floor below. I have two older colleagues with me and we are met by a huge security goon and forced to sit in the last row of seats with him. We see more goons approaching from the spiral into the hall. They are all headed for us.

The head goon turns to us and says “If you publish your findings, we will take your Section Six Clearance badge,” then turns to me and says “since you’re the cause of all this, we’ll just take yours now.”

“He doesn’t have it here. It’s downstairs,” says one of my colleagues, a gruff Jimmy Breslin type in a porkpie hat. “Leave him alone.”

I am grabbed by the approaching goon and held in place. Tears start to well onto my lower eyelids. “What has be country become?” I ask. “Where has my country gone?”

DREAM #2

At the New Jersey house in which I grew up, also in the future – maybe 15 years. It’s on ~5 acres of wooded property; not a lot of views of neighbors. Moonlight filtering through the trees. Rumbles from outside keep interrupting dinner preparation w/ my parents & my wife. I am waiting on friends to show up to join us.

“What’s going on?” I ask. “Is that noise outside Leila and Jonny getting here?”

“I don’t know. Go check on it,” my dad says, putting on an oven mitt and slapping it on the counter twice.

I step outside to find two US Postal Service flatbed towing trucks idling in the driveway. I knock on one of the windows and ask, “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting to get into our lot,” the driver says.

“But this is our house, our driveway. It’s private,” I say.

“We can wait anywhere we want,” he snaps back and rolls up his window. I look up to see that the flatbeds have multiplied. There are perhaps 6 or 8 now idling in the driveway. I go back in the house.

My friends Leila and Jonny have arrived. She is a small Asian woman and he is a tall, blonde Dane. Leila’s shirt has a hole in it and she points at mine. “You have it, too,” she says.

I look down to see that my shirt also has a hole in it.

“What does it mean?” I ask her.

“Why should it?” she asks.

I head upstairs to change my shirt, but all of a sudden, a deafening noise rumbles from outside. “Our dogs!” Leila shouts.

I run outside to find two Armored Personnel Carriers, emblazoned with Postal Service logos, tearing across the lawn and woods around the house, destroying everything in sight. They run over a gardening shed while the dogs run around and underneath them. One of the dogs comes over to me and I am joined outside by the others. My dad leans in to me and says, “That’s the dog that wouldn’t get in our car.”

wake up

written upon waking

on a jumbo jet plane that lands in a vacant lot
“where are we?” i ask the girl next to me
“looks like we’ve landed in burundi,” she says.
puts her hand on my arm
“better gather your stuff”
exit the plane and everyone starts running as if trying to escape from something.
flight attendant calls out
“the passport office is across the street!”
i grab all my bags (three – two shoulder-mounted carry ons and a small suitcase w/ no wheels), run to the other end of the dusty vacant lot and enter a colonial house.
a woman rushes into the kitchen
“the passport office?” i ask, reaching into my carry-on bag to produce my passport.
“across the street,” she says. “Two One Four Seventh Avenue. This is Two Four One. Everyone gets confused.”
“Oh,” I say.
Leave the house. Get out to the street. Looking at the numbers as i walk .

Then, smash-cut to a restaurant with my family.
taking off my winter coat, i turn from the table for a second as I place my hat, gloves and scarf into the coat’s sleeve. i turn back to hang it on my chair and someone has taken my seat.
from behind, i recognize this person as a former neighbor who couldn’t stand me (the feeling was almost mutual, though i took the high road). he is now jammed in and making friendly conversation with my mother and brother.
“don’t worry,” says my father. “things are bound to change.”
“well, i gotta go to the rest-room,” i say, slamming my outerwear onto the table and heading to a set of stairs on the far side of the restaurant.
down into the dank.
slimed walls, blackened wet floors. steam everywhere.
find the unisex bathroom.
two toilets. one low and and dry. the other high (~3-4 feet off the ground), almost overflowing with a frothy blue milky gurgle, but the liquid is staying just under the rim in a bubbling cold-boil.
decide to use the high one though questioning the choice out loud to myself.
as i’m relieving myself, awkwardly, a crazy skinny nerd kid with coke-bottle glasses bursts into the bathroom, spouts out gibberish words, bends down by the high toilet and proceeds to drink from the frothy blue gurgle.
“filet of fish is a filibuster of french fried forgeries and fickle…” he just goes on and on
“hey!” i call out. “I’m using this!”
the kid suckles his mouth over the side of the toilet, catching a mouthful of the liquid as it splashes up to the rim, stands up, looks down and spits it all onto my right converse high top
“what the fuck!” i scream and jam him up against the wall
he knocks his head on the tile and begins to moan more gibberish
woman runs into the bathroom and pulls me off of him
“what are you doing?” she screams at me
“he attacked me with filth” i respond with force.

{wake up}