Yellow Squares

  
I had another dream last night. This one was about my uncle, and I couldn't escape the asylum. He's not as crazy as I thought, but crazier. I understand why he's there, and if the things keep going the way the are in my life this dream is my future. I won't escape.

I fell asleep on the couch. The darkness of slumber gave way to the forests of dreams. I approached the mental ward on foot emerging from those forests. Surrounding the brick and concrete building was a large, manicured square. The freshly trimmed bushes and potted annuals indicated this was a place of wealth. The absence of feeling screamed insane asylum. I began wondering why I was here when I noticed a large red dot painted on the front door. In the middle of that dot was a one inch by one inch yellow square. Although not exactly like all the other dots, I knew I arrived.

The white (what I assumed to be marble) stairs welcomed me with glittering cleanliness. Their smooth, polished surface was felt underfoot even though I was wearing thick soled black boots. The steel handrail was sharply cold, and the flower bins that decorated the sides of the stairs were a little inhumanly manicured. Everything was perfect, crisp, idyllic like it stepped out of some 1950s movie. I put my hand on the door readying myself to push it open, hesitant because I was sure what was on the inside was not nearly as perfect as what was on the outside. I didn't want to leave the comfort of alien order. My hand trembling, I pushed. The door was locked.

I felt the thin raised edge of the red circle painted on the door between my thumb and forefinger. I followed it all the way around its circumference, and, when I reached my starting place, the yellow square in the center popped open. I peered inside, and all I saw was white: a bright blinding brilliance that burned the brown of my eyes.

I pushed myself away from the door and still only saw white. As my vision returned, I was no longer standing at the top of the marble stairs. I was inside the massive brick and concrete building with uniformed escorts gripping my biceps.

A dull voice projected from some tinny speaker far away ordered commands. "Head straight down the hall. Remain calm. The guards will guide you. Panic is only a remnant of fear, and fear is useless. You are here for your own safety. You will not speak unless spoked to. Patients must keep all  body parts to themselves. There is no escape. Head straight down the hall. Remain calm. The guards will guide you. Panic is..."

My vision still blurry, I couldn't make out anything other than my two bald guards. One was tall, slender feminine with painted eyebrows and pink lips. Her hands pinched and my skin beneath her grip ached. The other was all tall and slender. His large black bushy eyebrows and hairy stubby fingers read masculine, and his grip was loose but forceful. There could be no escape. Panicked, I released control and dropped all my weight. Their grips tightened, and they dragged me across the floor.

"You are here for your own safety. You will not speak unless spoken to. Patients must keep all body parts to themselves. There is no escape..."

It felt like I walked/was dragged down a straight corridor for hours. I was afraid that the movement would never end, and I started getting motion sickness. The two escorts never changed. They just looked straight ahead paying no attention to me. Queasiness finally controlled my stomach, and I started throwing up. The escorts ignored me. Strings of vomit and spittle decorated my clothes like a Jackson Pollock, which I now noticed was an insane-asylum-white straight jacket.

"You have arrived," said the tinny voice.

The escorts changed their position. The feminine one grabbed my feet; the masculine one grabbed me under my arm pits. They swung me back and forth.

"Now," commanded the speaker, and the escorts let go. I flew through the air and landed with a hard smack on my back on a cold concrete floor.

Another bright flash of white raced across my eyes, a click of a door closing briefly echoed, and I was surrounded in blackness that no sound or light could enter or escape. I fell asleep in what I perceived was a corner.

"Hello...Martin? Martin is that you? Wake up. Wake up!"

The urgency of his low whispered voice reached my ears, and I shot awake. It was still pitch black, but somewhere a long distance away on my right hand side was the faint yellow outline of a one inch by one inch square.

"Hurry Martin. I don't have much time or energy. Move. Move now! They are coming back. It is not your time yet. They are going to send you back, but I must speak with you first. Run. Run now!"

The voice was coming from the faint outline. I started making my way towards it squirming like a worm. There was something familial about the voice, and I needed to know from whom it came.

"Faster Martin! Quick. Quick!"

I wiggled myself to standing and started running. The small square grew to a large door. Behind me, I started hearing heels on tiles. I quickened my pace. As another door opened behind me, I jumped through the square and emerged in a small cube of which all the walls were dirt. A man in his forties with peppery hair sat with legs crossed in front of me smiling.

"It worked," he whispered followed by the thud of a door slamming shut. "We only have a few moments, Martin, and there is a lot I must tell you."

He suddenly looked both older and younger. It was as if his being oscillated between a teenage boy and an old man causing the image before me to look like it was in its forties.

"This is real, Martin. What is happening is real. Remember that. If you forget everything else I tell you, remember that. This IS real. This place DOES exist."

Then it came to me: he was my uncle. He didn't look like I remembered him, but my only memories were from when I was a boy and he was in his twenties.  Shortly thereafter, he was locked up. I hadn't seen him since.

"Martin. I need your help. I need you to do something back in the other world for me. I need you to visit me in the hospital, but first you need to know something. Something other than this is real. Do you understand?"

I refused to believe this was real. I closed my eyes and plugged my ears with my index fingers. I didn't want to believe what was happening to me. If it was real, it meant my dots were real, and there was and is comfort in pretending its all make believe. While it doesn't exactly excuse my actions in this world, it does make them more of a joke. If the dots are real, it means I have to do something. I'm comfortable doing nothing. It's how I manage living.

He slapped me and spat in my face. "Martin! We don't have time for your shit. Listen. This is incredibly important."

A loud booming pounding erupted behind me.

"They are getting closer. Now pay attention."

My uncle began drawing shapes on the dirt floor with his finger. They were a mish mash of symbols some of which I recognized as corporate logos. There was Apple, Nike, Shell, and the CBS eye followed by a triangle, square, and finally a large circle that appeared red to me. It was the only color in the entire cell. Something moved me, and I lurched forward. Catching my balance, I threw out my hand, and it landed on the red dot.

"NO!" Screamed my uncle, and I started falling through it. "Do not trust anyone, Martin. They are coming for you. Remember: THIS IS REAL!!!"

He continued yelling at me, but his voice became mute as I continued falling.

I woke up panicked and sweating with vomit covering my face and my pants wet from having pissed. The weird thing is the piss formed a perfect square on my couch, and all the remnants of my stomach that were now all over my face were perfect red circles. I collected every last bit of vomit in a tupperware container and flipped the couch cushion.

I made my way to bed, but didn't want to sleep. I was terrified to see my uncle again, so I sat up and wrote the dream down.

I am not going to visit him. Well...at least not yet. I don't want confirmation that what is happening is real. Denial is a wonderful place to live.

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The Urban Legend of the Dog Eating Peanut Butter Off Her Vag

  
Wow! That's all I really can muster right now. Fucking WOW! I've just woken up from a crazy ass dream that included chocolate dildos, banana condoms, and peanut butter-flavored lube. Intense and weird. The only other thing I can remember is the ground beneath my feet falling away. It was like that special effect in The Matrix when Neo's getting trained in the white room. Do you remember that? He was standing in that empty space and then shelves of guns fell like water from somewhere above and appeared as solid, concrete objects around him. This was that in reverse. Only it wasn't guns and it wasn't a white room.

I was on stage at the DNA lounge ready to perform, floating dildos all around me when the black stage fell away. It was like it turned into a millions of tiny squares and each square fell into a void somewhere below me. I twas suspended there momentarily and looked down. The void was a rolling sea of red dots. As I finally made out the dots, I started falling.

I woke up to something crashing panicked. My bed was drenched, almost as if I pissed myself, and the covers were thrown all over the floor. I got up, went to my desk, and started writing all of this down fearing I'd forget it in the morning. Well...I guess it is morning technically. It is 4am, but you know what I mean.

I haven't checked out what broke. I probably should. Be right back.

I'm back. Isn't it weird how time passes so differently in writing. It took me about nine minutes to finally find what was broken, ad only one sentence to convey that. Totally a random and unrelated topic, but it does seem like life is only a dream once it's on paper.

It was a red shot glass I left sitting on the edge of the sink in the bathroom. I didn't think to look their because the sound was shattering glass, and I don't remember putting the shot glass in the bathroom. I must've taken another shot of tequila when I got home last night from our gig at The Eagle. Here is the really bizarre thing: all of the shattered glass pieces were in perfect circles. There were hundreds of them all over the floor, under the tub, in the tube, on top of the toilet seat. The entire blue bathroom was speckled with red glass dots. I feel as if my dream exploded in my bathroom.

I'm really unnerved. I hate the way shattered glass reverberates through your bones. It always reminds me of the time I broke a bottle of mineral water when I was a kid. When it hit the concrete, it burst. A small sliver found its way to the artery right beneath the knee cap and nicked it. Blood started flowing and soon my entire right leg was painted blood red and a large pool formed beneath my feet. I screams so loudly (I fucking HATE blood) my mom rushed out all panicked. She lost her balance as she ran into the garage slipping on all of the blood and sliced her hand wide open as she tried to grab the edge of the steel work bench. Blood poured from her hand and mixed with the quickly growing puddle on the floor. Luckily, our nurse neighbor was home, heard the ruckus, and came over. A couple of stitches later and both my mom and I were fine.

The image of the giant puddle of blood, the one I had to clean up after we got back from the emergency room, is the image that rushes to my mind whenever glass breaks. The glass dots look like a thousand droplets of blood covering the entire bathroom. I don't want to clean it up. In fact, I'm going to ignore it and go back to sleep.

The copious amount of tequila I shot last night is finally catching up with me. My head is beginning to pound. Four Advil, a tall glass of cold water, and sleep is what I need. I can clean it up tomorrow.

p.s. I had to sleep on the couch because my bed was just too wet. I had another weird ream. Do you remember that dumb urban legend when we were kids about the woman who was caught being eaten out by her dog? In it, she calls in sick to work which sets off alarm bells for some reason at work. Her boss gets worried about her and decides to check things out. He heads to her home only to find the front door unlocked. He enters and doesn't see her, so he heads to her bedroom to see if she is sleeping. He is mortified when he gets to her bedroom and see a jar of peanut butter next to her bed and her dog licking something off her vag, a look of ecstasy on her face. Well...that was my weird dream. Only I had it twice. The first time I was the boss. The second  time I was the dog. I can't get the taste of peanut butter off my tongue.

And...I did clean up the bathroom. It took almost an hour to get all the glass picked up. I kept all the pieces.

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November 26, 2009

Hey There. I'm back. I've been incredibly sick over the last few days, so much so I haven't even really thought about any of the red dots. I've been downing Nyquil and Emergen-C for the last 48 hours. (Note: Don't ever take one right after the other. You will end up in the bathroom, head over the toilet, worse than you were before.) I'm feeling slightly better now, except for the achy joints and occasional dizzy spells.  

I had to pick you back up today not only to momentarily escape the crappiness I feel, but also because I had the most unsettling dream last night. I'll try and record some of the past instances of red dots, but it feels like my energy will fade at any moment, and I have to record this dream before it escapes my memory.

I sat on my comfy plaid couch most of yesterday wrapped in the pastel afghan my granny crocheted me. I flipped channels between the Food Network, Home and Garden, and the endless James Bond movies on SyFy. Once that got boring - I can only take so many flipping holiday cooking shows - I ordered Drag Me to Hell on OnDemand. Somehow, the old gypsy, Allison Lohman, and that button entered my subconscious. More on that soon.

After the movie, I made a can of Campbell's Chicken Soup, slurped it down, and passed out on the couch while watching The Spy Who Loved Me. It was unrestful sleep, the kind that makes you really tired. The movie mixed with dreams. Soon, I was swimming off the shores of Italy with Jaws, not the shark but the henchman with the silver grill after 007, walking along the ocean floor trying to bite off my toes. When he finally chomped off my pinky toe, I was at home with Paula Deen making pickled pig's feet, and the whole place stunk of boiled vinegar. The liquid was turning into a gelatinous mess -- one that Paula told me I would have to clean.  The stench and the fat morphed into wallpaper paste, and son I was remodeling a kitchen with large red polka dots. Yes...red dots.

I recognized the dots instantaneously as the same red dots that have been teasing me for the last few weeks and startled awake. The first thing I saw when I woke up was the VCR, yes I still own one, blinking 11:42 in its dull green light. Except, the dots of the colon were red, and the time couldn't have been right. If it was, it meant I had slept on the couch for almost ten hours. I rubbed my eyes thinking I must be hallucinating from the fever and looked at the clock again. The red colon was gone, and the time read 1:43. I had only been asleep a couple of minutes. Oh...and it wasn't blinking either.

Unnerved at this point, I turned off the television leaving Jaws in hot pursuit of Bond, took two capfuls of Nyquil, and went to bed. It took me quite a while to fall asleep. I couldn't stop obsessing about the wallpaper. When I finally did, it was filled with tossing and turning until I entered dreamland. Then, everything changed. It's why I have to write this down even though all of my joints and muscles ache and it's uncomfortable to sit in this chair.

It started with sinking. The bed turned into water, and I was slowly drifting to the bottom of the ocean. Jaws was there. This time it was the shark. I wasn't afraid at all. Instead, I just watched him swim elegantly through the water. The gentle back and forth motion of his body lulled me into a trance, and I woke up on a beach somewhere in Southern California. It was bright and the sun was high in the sky. Next to me were about a dozen or so sunbathers all on beach towels with red dots. Some were like a giant Target logo. Some were like the wallpaper from the dream. On one of the towels laid Allison Lohman. On another laid the woman I saw in Safeway. The same on who can see the red dots. (I promise, really I do, I will tell the Safeway story soon.) The Safeway woman was fully clothed head to toe in back, the same outfit I first saw her in, and she was staring at me. She was the furthest person from me.

Allison Lohman was to my left and was also staring at me. When she saw me look at her, she smiled and said, "I have a gift for you."

I replied, "I don't want your gift. I don't accept it. I know what it will do."

"Then follow me," she said.

I stood ready to follow her. She stood too. So did the woman in black.

I looked around me, and we were no longer at the beach. Now we were at a fortune tellers with red circular candles on every surface. A circular table with a red table cloth sat in the middle of the room with Tarot cards fanned on one side.

"Please sit," Allison commanded, and so I did.

A red beaded curtain directly across from me rattled and out walked the Safeway woman. As she sat down at the table, she morphed in to the gypsy from Drag Me to Hell. Her dentures chomped, foam gathered at the corners of her mouth, and she leaned in close to me. Up until now, I was perfectly calm. Seeing the gypsy put me on edge, and I quickly stood up and looked for Allison to tell her I was leaving. She was no longer in the room. It was just me and the gypsy. Fear gripped me, and I ran for the curtain.

The gypsy screamed in a pitch that shattered all of the glass in the room including the candle holders and the three window and the little trinkets for sale. "Pay attention to the dots! They are the key!!"

Shards of glass flew in to my eyes and blood dripped in perfect circles down my cheeks forming a large pool beneath my feet. There was a sudden clap. The shards flew out of my eyes, and I was standing in a pitch black space with the pool of blood still underneath me. I tried moving, but was stuck in place by two hands firmly gripping my ankles. I screamed, terrified. The scream bounced and echoed all around me as it it were a round being sung. The hands pulled me through the blood beneath my feet.

I was back at the beach. This time the sun was setting and burned a bright red. The only other person on the beach was Allison. She approached me and said, "I have a gift for you. Don't be afraid of it."

"I still don't want your gift." I replied crying. "I just want to wake up."

It was then that I realized this was all just a dream. I turned to her and said, "I will take your gift as long as I can wake up."

Allison presented me with a white envelope. I tore it open, and it contained a single red button.

"Pay attention to the dots," she whispered in my ear.

Everything faded to black.

I woke up a little while later, and I was holding a button. I panicked. How on earth did this happen? Then, I looked at the pajamas I was wearing, and they were my black flannel one with the red buttons. One of the buttons was torn off and now in my hand. The funny thing is: I don't remember putting on those pajamas before hopping in to bed.

I looked around my bedroom and found a neat pile of clothes at the foot of my bed. My closet door was wide open. Inside, it was messy as if someone tore through it looking for something. I deduced that I must've been sleepwalking, something I haven't done since I was 11 years old.

A dizziness hit me, and, as I was about to lay back down on the bed, I glanced at the clock. It was blinking 11:42, and, you guessed it, the colon was red.

I couldn't go back to bed. I put the button with my red dot collection. Then, I had to open you up and start writing everything down no matter how I felt.

That's it.

I am still trying to figure this all out. I have no idea what any of it means. I just know I have to pay attention.

I'm feeling worse now than I did when I started writing this, so I'm going to take a few more capfuls of Nyquil and, hopefully, actually sleep. We'll see if that actually happens.

Be back soon.

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