Herding Cats.

Nasty muscle spasms in my back have made it extremely difficult for me to get any decent sleep lately. I’ve still been dreaming, but my dreams tend to overlap and get jumbled up so that I can’t stay focused on one long enough to remember it. As soon as I start to really get into one, another one butts in, then another. Before I know it, it’s like herding cats. A rather pointless undertaking.

Nurse Cameron

It was a warm fall evening, much too nice to stay indoors. We sat around the laptop in the front yard, surfing the web and playing games. A white car approached from the left. Everyone ignored it, but I was compelled to look at it. A man was driving slowly with the music up loud. We made eye contact and as he rolled past I heard him cock a handgun. He kept going but stopped a short distance down the street from the house. I looked at my brother, “We need to get inside. Did you see that car? Something’s not right.”

We gathered the computer and went inside. I told my brother and our friend what I saw. We knew this man was going to come after us. Other people were in the house; they grabbed a cell phone and hid in a bedroom closet. I noticed that the car was now parked in front of the house and the man was confidently approaching, gun in hand. I grabbed my cell phone and went down to the basement with the boys. The man seemed to be reading our minds; he went around to the back yard where there was an entrance to the basement.  I dialed 911 and waited desperately until someone answered. I whispered the address so the man couldn’t hear me but my brother hushed me.

He’s here.

The three of us huddled in a firewood bin: my brother in front, me behind him, and our friend next to me. The door opened and the man looked around the room. My brother silently started to sob. He’s a strong man; a former Marine. But he knew we didn’t stand a chance against the man with the gun. Having scanned the entire basement, finding nothing, the man slowly turned toward us. He knew we were there. He didn’t say a word. His face held no expression and there was total silence as he lifted the gun in our direction and fired. Two shots for my brother; two for our friend. The man paused briefly while he looked at me. There was mischief in his eyes. Then he shot me twice in the head.

We are all upstairs. Hostages. The man now has a partner, and they are talking to us. My head hurts terribly. My brother and his friend are sitting on the sofa, blood soaking through their shirts. They are pale and they look defeated. I stand and face the man, “I need to go to the hospital. You shot me in the head. Please. The hospital is just down the road.” He consults his friend, silently, the one staring at the other until an understanding is reached. “Go ahead,” they tell me. I’m confused; they’re actually going to let me go.

I step outside, wearing a wig the man gave me to hide the gunshot wounds. He doesn’t want me to draw any attention to myself. The walk to the hospital seems to take forever. I stop into a market to grab something to drink. “I like your hair!” says a girl behind me. I thank her and explain that I’ve been shot in the head. She smiles and walks away. Back outside, the sun is too bright. I have a migraine.

Reaching the hospital, I step up to the nurses’ desk in the emergency room. There are a few people in line, waiting patiently for their turn. People begin to chat. “Why are you here?” they all ask one another. One tells us that her baby is sick. Another admits that she clumsily fell down the stairs and broke her tailbone. Smilingly politely, they look at me. I’m embarrassed to tell them. “I got shot in the head. ” They both look a little stunned and implore me to go first. When the nurse comes around she tries to skip me because I look fine but I mumble to her, “But I got shot in the head.” She ignores me and starts talking to the lady with the sick baby. “I GOT SHOT! IN THE HEAD!” My urgent whisper finally gets her attention and I’m taken into an exam room.

I’m now in a hospital bed. My wig is gone and I don’t know if my head hurts. The man with the gun is seated next to me. My nurse comes in to check on me. It’s Cameron Diaz. My attacker chats pleasantly with her and flirts a little. He flashes me a conspiratorial grin. I never see him again.

Back at home I catch up with my brother and our friend. We are all recovered from our injuries and talking about what happened that day. While I was in the hospital they had found out that Cameron Diaz had gotten her nursing license and wanted to work in a small hospital where she wouldn’t be bothered by fans. The man with the gun had had a crush on her for years. Desperate to meet her, he plotted a way to meet her.

His attack on us that day was a ruse. He shot us and held us against our will. We were terrified of him. His allowing me to go to the hospital was a blessing. I knew I could not rat him out. He knew he would be able to visit me in the hospital so he could finally meet Cameron.

Nobody knows we exist (and we like it that way) – Part 2

Nobody knows we exist (and we like it that way) Pt.2

I should have been startled, but I wasn’t in the least because the town didn’t feel deserted. I stepped aside to allow the gentleman access to his mailbox. I watched him intently, curious about who he was, where he lived, what he did for a living, and what sort of mail he received. He was wearing blue jeans, sneakers, a sweatshirt and a ball cap. He appeared to be in his 70s and seemed to be the sort of man you’d like to live next door to. He didn’t mind that I stood there staring as he collected his mail; in fact, he chuckled and glanced over at me as he reached his hand in to collect his mail. From the other side of the open post office box I heard a hearty “Good morning sir!” and could see outside, where a man in a USPS uniform stood next to a jeep with a small bag of mail. Now this did startle me.

While the gentlemen chatted about the weather I stepped outside. Off to my left the road continued past the storefronts. A defunct railroad crossing served as the boundary between the abandoned town and a newer town with a few residents going about their business. A woman walked out of a small grocery store carrying bread and eggs while a woman watered her flower garden across the street. Curious, I walked towards the railroad crossing.

Immediately on the other side there stood a drive-in burger joint. A bored carhop in candystripes smacked on gum as a dust devil snaked its way across the empty parking lot. There wasn’t a car in sight, nor the slightest hint that teenagers or youth of any age lived in the town. I approached the carhop to ask her where everyone was, but as I got nearer I realized she wasn’t there. I only expected to find her there.

I suddenly became very concerned that I was lost and would not be able to find my way home. I looked toward the mountains, thinking I could use them as a landmark. While earlier they resembled the Wasatch, they now looked entirely different. I looked around and realized I was nowhere near home. A cloud of dust appeared down the road and made its way toward me. It was an old brown pickup truck driven by a teenage boy in a letterman’s jacket. Next to him sat a girl of the same age. The truck stopped and they both got out and headed in my direction. They were smiling warmly as they greeted me and welcomed them to their town.

“How did you find us?” she asked. I told her that I wasn’t sure, but it certainly was an odd town, wasn’t it? They both laughed, then offered me a ride. The boy had to get to work soon, so we were going to his house. The girl explained that she lived next door; not many people had cars in their town, so she always rode along with him wherever he went. They had gone to school together all their lives and had just graduated from high school. As she told me this, we drove past a high school that had clearly been abandoned for decades. Knowing the question I was about to ask she told me that they didn’t go to school there or anywhere near this town. Their families had moved to the town only a couple of months ago. There wasn’t a whole lot to do, but nobody got into any trouble and people looked after one another.

We pulled up in front of the boy’s house. It looked like something out of “Little House on the Prairie”; as he went inside I tried to get a peek but then realized it was rude and a little creepy to do that. After all, I don’t really know them. The girl and I walked towards her house and I asked her what other towns were nearby. Nothing was nearby, she told me, but some places weren’t as far as other places. The nearest highway was 200 miles to the east, and that would probably get me anywhere I needed to go if I had a car.

And just like that, I did have a car. I was in the passenger seat as the girl sped down a freshly paved two lane highway. Pine trees zipped past as she told me that all the men in the town worked for the railroad at some point but recently they were all getting laid off. The boy worked for the railroad, too. The road got curvier and curvier as she drove faster and faster. Not wanting to offend my host (for that’s what she was), I didn’t say anything until after we’d gone over a crest in the road and the car went airborne for several seconds. When the tires finally touched down I asked her to please stop, as I was worried that my car couldn’t handle that sort of thing and I really needed the car to get home. She ignored me and kept driving until we returned to the town.

I asked her the name of the town before she got out of the car. She told me, but I’ve forgotten. “Is that in Utah?” I asked her. She laughed and said, “It might be. I really don’t know.  You can get to the freeway if you head north for 50 miles, then head east for 200 miles. I don’t know where it’ll take you, but it’ll take you somewhere.” I wondered–but didn’t have the nerve to ask–why her family and the boy’s family had moved there to such an isolated town. As I got into the driver’s seat of the old Camry she said, “I know all of this seems a bit strange. The thing is, nobody knows this place exists. You won’t remember it. Nobody knows WE exist. And you know what? We like it that way.”

Nobody knows we exist (and we like it that way) – Part 1

Thanks to pharmaceuticals, I had my first epic post-insomnia dream experience a few weeks back. The dream was so riveting that I obsessed over it for days. Here’s my attempt to capture it in words.

Nobody knows we exist (and we like it that way)

The desert sun was bright and relentless but the air was neutral in temperature. In silence I walked alongside a featureless presence; it was little more than a glint of reflected glare in my peripheral vision and yet I felt no apprehension in having it with me as I trekked. Drifts of sand were spotted with clustered blades of yucca and puffs of sagebrush. In the distance was a range of dusty violet mountain peaks that resembled the Wasatch. I couldn’t turn to my partner to determine which way I was supposed to go, as it always disappeared if I looked directly at it. I had a sense that I was supposed to continue toward the mountains, which always loomed impossibly far away over small hills of sand that prevented me from seeing what lie between myself and the familiar peaks.

Suddenly we stopped and it said to me, “There’s an old abandoned town just over the hill. Nobody knows it’s there, so it’s in pristine condition. Go, see for yourself.” I turned toward the voice and caught a glimpse of a man-shaped cloud of sand that glittered away before I could see it. I turned to view the mountains when suddenly the panorama revealed itself. I gasped in awe when I realized that I was standing on top of a hill, looking down upon an old rutted road. Beyond the road stood the surprisingly modern looking town. It was shrouded in desert haze, but I could just make out one or two buildings that were ten stories or so in height. A tumbleweed lazily rolled past as I focused my eyes on a flashing red dot of light in the haze; it was a lone stoplight standing guard over crumbled asphalt at the entrance to the town.

STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP.

So I did. On the rutted road below, an old blue sedan slowly made its way in the direction I had come from. A portly man in a business suit casually sipped coffee from a commuter mug and tapped the steering wheel to the beat of a twangy tune coming from his AM radio. I could see him as clearly as if I were sitting in the passenger seat next to him, yet he was completely unaware of my presence. I waited for him to pass, entranced by the unexpected sight of a very normal looking man obliviously doing very normal things in this surreal environment created by my subconscious. I speculated as to who he may be. Certainly I had never seen him before in the dreamworld or the physical; I concluded that he was not meant to be there and was simply getting out of the way so I could continue on my journey.

Within seconds I was standing on the crest of another hill overlooking the town. The tall buildings had vanished, along with the stoplight. To my right, at the bottom of the hill, stood a two-story hotel surrounded by a porch. A road ran alongside the hotel, passed in front of me, and continued on to my left. My eyes followed the road, taking in the old post office and storefronts. It looked very much like your standard Old West town, and while nobody was there, it didn’t feel like a ghost town. Nothing was in disrepair; lacy curtains hung in the window of a dry goods store; windows were intact and clean; a shiny blue USPS mailbox stood in front of the post office. This didn’t strike me as odd, as one expects to find a shiny blue mailbox in front of the post office.

Inside the post office, more lacy curtains hung in the windows and a small museum of sorts showcased treasured possessions of late 19th and early 20th centuries: thimbles; porcelain and cloth dolls; doilies; oil lamps with milk glass bases; opera glasses; daguerrotypes; a Victrola; iron skillets; ink wells and plume pens; and the portrait of a long since forgotten heiress in a bubble glass frame. There were only a few rows of brass post office boxes. Most didn’t have a door and stood open with not a speck of dust inside. A handful had doors with combination locks and glass fronts; all had mail inside. I peered into one, hoping to see envelopes with fancy handwriting that might contain letters between dear friends or lovers separated by some great distance. Behind me I heard someone clear their throat. “Excuse me, ma’am, but I need to get my mail.”

…to be continued…