you need a reed

i was being chased by a vague gray-clad person. his whole body was covered in gray - like a lycra suit or something. and i knew i couldn't outrun him so when i came by a pole, i climbed up it. it was a tree. but it only had two tiny branches. i went to the top one about a hundred feet up. and before he reached me and touched me (really, i was just afraid of his touch, not being killed) i decided that i would jump. i thought that i would probably just break my legs but otherwise survive. and so i went to the end of this tiny branch with its two leaves and i hung from it ready to drop. but i was stopped. a plump motherly figure firmly told me "you need a reed." and i was annoyed that i was being disturbed in this stressful moment but she repeated "you need a reed. it will bend and you can drop safely into the water." and even though it was barren ground beneath me, i saw the truth of this. and then i was sitting in a bathtub washing myself and thinking "a reed. i need a reed." and she had brought me to this clean place where i could think and there were big bright clean towels to dry off with folded all around on the white tile. she asked me if i was okay and i said that i was. my mind was racing with gratefulness and thoughts of how i had almost dropped and injured myself but just needed a reed.

david and the bulldozer, alligator, white ebony, and anger

preparing for surgery, it is my job to verify the phone numbers of patients and circle the numbers on the charts and give them to the surgeon. today, there are four surgeries at once. two of them are patients i am responsible for. flipping through their charts, there is a photo of each patient. the doctor pulls out every photo and asks me to name the two patients that are mine. i can name the baby, the not the five year old boy. "jesse" he tells me and i repeat the name, ashamed that i could not remember only two names. i will never be a great nurse, i think.

standing in the atrium by the OR entrance, a nurse flips through photos of a man. he is a famous photographer named david. each photograph is of him a different age standing in front of larger and larger blades of bulldozers. the nurse explains that it was foretold when he was very young that he would be crushed by a bulldozer and he has been obsessed with this notion his whole life. he is coming here so that we have a chance to save him from his fate. we look up to see him running down two and a half flights of wall to wall stairs in the atrium. behind him is a bulldozer the size of, and shape of, a gigantic house. i say to the nurse next to me "but surgery won't save him, will it?" she still stares straight ahead at the doomed man running towards us and shakes her head "no."

sitting in the joint commons room with my classmates, we hear that a couple of students are going home. it's not a pleasant school to be at so we are all a little jealous but there is sadness also because we've had to become so close to survive. i am sitting on the couch and the alligator is laying across the top. he is a tall, strong, sensitive, older and intelligent black man in an alligator suit that he never takes off. it's easy to fall for him. presently, a young girl of about 19 years that resembles my cousin is leaving. she has said goodbye twice already, but she just can't bring herself to leave the alligator. she comes in with a tall, pale, nasally speaking white man. he tells her that Niger most definitely means "apple". she stands her ground and says proudly that he is wrong, it means "black". the people around the room agree with her. the alligator backs her up in a forcefully deep voice. she points to a map leaning against the wall and says that she is going home to Nigeria. the alligator tells her that they cannot be together until she finds a matching alligator suit and maybe she'll find one there. she says that she will do even better than that; she will find white ebony which will allow him to shed his suit. they embrace and it is clear that they will truly miss each other's company.

jolene's parents are taking her home too. they're angry about something. she is panicking, rambling things that don't make sense. she is flipping through the notebook and i see that each page has a title "who i love today" and check boxes with names underneath. sometimes it is the alligator. lately, it has been me. sometimes she has changed my name to "kaylynn". her father is a large, bald, and angry-red man. he lefts her out of her chair by her arm and leads her away. i get up and walk away from her sad notebook.

i realize everyone has started eating. i put a little of the disappointing buffet on my plate but it all has seafood in it and i can't stand seafood. i get to the pathway to the other half of the cafeteria and almost run into closed glass doors. i am annoyed that they are closed but no one seems to have noticed me standing there awkwardly wondering what to do next. i see there is an open panel in the glass to the right by the seafood. i go there and walk into the half of the cafeteria where my friends are. i'm much more comfortable and at ease here.

my dad is visiting. he wants to know how we like it. we tell him it's terrible. he says it can't be that bad, there's 19 buildings and so much to do. i tell hm that there may be 19 buildings, but we'll never know. we're only allowed into a few rooms: the cafeteria, the common room, the sundry store, the classroom, and the tiny, windowless, hot room where dave shiner gives his boring 3 hour sermons. my friends agree and testify that i am telling the truth. my dad looks angry because he paid for something else. but he is not angry enough to rescue me from this hellhole. i know that for sure.

on a committee in a large sunlit room that i have never been in before, we sit around a rectangle shaped by tables. there is a new faculty member. he shouts and argues that we need to change the tax code around graduation gowns, it's not fair to the students. they just can't afford it! the older faculty all look angry that someone is standing up for the students but only one person argues against it. i know that this is huge. i don't quite understand this tax code that they are shouting about but i understand that we students finally have an advocate. i roll my pencil up and down my notepad, waiting silent and excited, listening carefully.

Detroit?

we are watching tv at my mom's. we love to do this because she not only has cable, but she has a huge tv. an infomercial comes on while the boy is on the phone with the presenter. they seem to have come to some sort of agreement and the host is one of those very smart boys from mchenry. this portion of the infomercial is a special deal, just for us! he tells us that for $240 he can get us a 150 inch tv and they'll even take off the $120 cost of flying chris out here to set it up. i don't know who chris is but the boy has already agreed and i can't deny that it's a great deal. but i don't know how i'm going to get $240 either.

i'm walking through detroit. the sidewalks are a little wobbly and i'm glad i'm only holding a light plastic bag along with my purse. but soon enough, i crash through and am in a dirt tunnel beneath where the sidewalk should have been. there is a hispanic man and a little girl walking ahead of me. they look back, but don't say anything. i follow them back up and they go into a house. i follow the now sturdy sidewalk but cannot get out of this section of housing. there is a chain link fence everywhere. i even climb up on someone's cellar door to see if i can climb but there is electric fence at the top. it's a lot of security, but i feel reasonably safe. i go back into the tunnel and climb back out where i had fallen and walk around the fence and along the street. there is a business man in front of me. i ask him if there is a number i could call to for the city. he looks at me like i'm crazy. i say, you know, a hotline i could call for information or to make complaints. they sidewalk fell in back there. if they don't fix it, they are going to get sued. he tells me to call 3333 and sarcastically says "good luck. whenever i call i don't get anyone to answer." so i text my message to 3333 expecting no answer but angry and not willing to stay quiet. i get an immediate response that Doyle (the sherriff) saw me at the vet the other day. i perceive this as a threat but i've got nothing to hide.

waiting under the train tracks for a bus i see lots of people. they live in mobile homes and out on the street but they are all in a joyous mood. it feels like a holiday. someone recognizes me and says hello. we embrace warmly. it is angie from high school and she looks terrific and happy. she leaves abruptly for her train but she smiles genuinely before saying goodbye. i wait for my bus clenching my bags and thinking that i don't need the tv.

tornadoquakes and earthdrawers

we are at a tori concert. it's been pretty good so far and i enjoyed myself thoroughly, but i'm older now and it all kind of sounds the same so i don't feel like sitting through the encore. she has two pianos on the stage and saradevil comes out and starts playing sister janet and belting out lyrics. "master shaman, i have come." i smile at her confidence, happy that she has this moment for herself and go down to the basement.

i sit in a leather cushy chair with my feet on the coffee table next to my friend. he is not particularly attractive, a little heavy, hair mussed, rather plain looking in his balck t-shirt and dirty baggy jeans. but he's nice to me and he listens to me and this is just fine for now. i practice flirting with him. i tell him that there are about 400 songs on my playlist and i chose the specific order of each song but really i wanted to put all of the megadeth songs at the top of the list. he lip syncs along with dave mustane and i am sincerely impressed by this boy. i tell him that i need to call his friend to see if he wants to hang with me. he seems a little hurt that i want to leave him and i brush it off like the arrogant teenager i am. i just want to be around more people is all. i call but he doesn't pick up. i shrug and continue to listen to music with him in this concert hall basement which has windows that look out into the depths of a muted sea. fish swim by silently and we don't even think to look at them we are so used to it.

my mother is working at the marina again and my friends and i really want cookies. but then i remember that we don't have butter. we are wandering around outside deciding to go to the store when we fall. grabbing the grass i look up and point to a place in the sky. i don't really know why i'm pointing there but we all look and soon can make out a tornado. it's big but going away from us. however, it's still strong enough to cause the earth below us to rise upward and expand. when the tornado is gone i look below me and see a perfect raised square about a foot higher than the rest of the ground. about 6 inches high is an extension, another rectangle. as if the earth was raising up secret dressers and pulling out ancient drawers. they are everywhere. houses have towers of earth that have smashed through them up to their roofs and dirt and belongings are pooring out of their doors and windows with curtains fluttering outside in the the breeze of a calm and sunny day. i think that i am glad i didn't go to the basement and it's stupid for us to think it is a safe place. i could have been smashed into the ceiling.

i call my mother and tell her of the earth drawers. she laughs and asks me if i honestly have never seen them. i'm a little hurt that she thinks me so naive, but i admit that i have never seen them in my life. she tells me that she used see them all the time just by laying on the ground on her stomach and saying through cupped hands directly into the earth "hello, hello, hellloooooooo."

we decide that we don't want to make cookies anymore. we'll just buy a box of pre-made brownies that just have to be greased and cut.