I was born over there, and then I moved here. Between that time, the only dreams I can recall are two. One was of two sisters, and it was based on a true story. Two sisters in a high-rise opposite ours, who—whom, is it?— the kids said were witches. In the dream, I was hanging out of their window and they were about to let me fall. There was an ostracized girl in the neighborhood, at whom we were supposed to throw rocks, or that she would throw rocks at us—I forget. I'm getting an image of an old lady with purple frightening hair throwing cats, but I think that's just the Simpsons. No, it is. That's from the Simpsons, not my life. The other dream was of a dead girl, in an elegant coffin in a room. The room was all pink, the kind of pink from bedsheets and layers on a cake. The curtains were creamy pink, as well, blocking the sun, but you could feel its presence throughout the room. That dream most recently has taken significance in my mind, as I consider my life. I don't think I just remembered it; I'm sure I've had it stored throughout the years, and it may or may not have come to the forefront here or there, or perhaps in some feeling or sensation of deja vu.
My favorite cartoon, like all the other kids—I don't think there was much from which to choose—was Nu Pakadze, a Tom & Jerry construct, a rabbit, and a wolf who smoked. I fell in love with "A Million Roses," due to an episode from the show, where the wolf looks down at his reflection in the pond. The day before setting sail, I watched the show with my cousin and gave him my tapes. We were leaving.
In America, I was afraid of kidnappings. That was the first thing I learned about this country, missing kids, milk cartons—my dad would walk us to the 7-11 down the street, where he later revealed he would be scared we'd want something he couldn't afford. There was no such thing as sliced bread over there. We were crazy about bananas when we first encountered them, now how dull, they were tropical and exotic. My favorite toy was a plastic, little yellow corvette my dad bought for me during a layover. I love airline food to this day, the tin foil over the meal and the surprise. Now it's just the anticipation. We didn't have much money; we stayed in an apartment with dad's friend's family. They worked in a little sweat shop sowing T-shirts and shorts, pink, orange, and green.
Growing up, my dream was to live in a mansion, with a yellow corvette and a blond wife, and be a lawyer. That's what I would draw. I'd take a couple cushions out of our sofa and couch while my parents watched TV, and set them side by side on the floor with papers strewn across them as my desk, and I'd get to grading with a red marker or being a lawyer. One time we were driving down a street—Colorado is the word I want to use. Yes, it was, it was Colorado Blvd, across from the Galleria. We saw a barefooted woman in a baggy dress sprawled on the ground near a couple steps on the sidewalk. Her face was smudged with gray and her skin was dirty. She was painting the ground with her hands. There were empty tin cans in and around her bare legs. Her mouth was open and her eyes were smiling; her face was happy and sick. I'm not much of a fan of my sister's most recent work, the alien themes—I prefer her earlier stuff, and my themes seem to be witches and white snakes. I had some Golden Grahams left, so I poured some soymilk over it in a bowl. I unwrapped a hershey's little-finger sized bar, and broke it up into four and added that over the cereal. I hoped it would melt over in the microwave, which it sort of did, but the bowl was too hot for touch. So I used a towel to pour the concoction into a cup. I lost some of the chocolate that had melted into the porcelain bowl after the milk
during equestrian therapy, I walked away from the group for a moment to linger by a little makeshift koi pond that had suffered from the drought. I thought about a later episode of The Office, where Michael falls into one, and I decided I would look forward to watching the series again. I recalled the relaxed air of binge-watching a show on my bed, a quiet wholesome joy. The show could be viewed on Netflix and I felt the latter stages of how I used it. We didn't have Netflix back at the house, and I could rent the series from a library; we didn't have a DVD player back there either. I imagined a library full of DVDs, going to the bathroom, then browsing feverishly.
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