The Wake Up
I woke up feeling nothing at all.
I was “acquainted with the floor,” as a poet once said, perpendicular to the street.
Things seemed normal, except, of course, my reasons for being there in the first place.
That’s when I noticed her.
She was typical enough, nothing to make you scratch your eye in disbelief.
I wasn’t incredulous at all.
Well, maybe that’s a mistake.
More curious than anything. But not so shocked like you would think.
Well, she was just like any other around…button sweater over an unassuming blouse, modest skirt, comfortably professional shoes, with that, little flexible leather.
Very professional type; at least for the area.
I know other places are a bit different.
She had glasses.
Her sweater was blue. Light blue. Sky–or baby.
I shifted upwards and felt heavy in the head, so I thought.
It was quiet.
For that place, didn’t really make sense.
It wasn’t calm, silence, I should say—the wane of a sound.
More like the absence of it, mutable, like there was nothing to give it off, like everything was hollow.
Like when you play a movie but the words don’t connect, there’s a delay, the source and wave aren’t there; it’s detached.
I finally got up after some labor.
“This is normal,” she said.
That’s what she said.
That’s when I noticed.
The sky was pinkish and electric, and the clouds seemed to be churning in from outside themselves—there was thunder, and lighting was projecting out and in to itself.
I said, “This is normal?”
And that’s the woman you keep seeing?
Yeah.
And it’s always the same?
Think so.
But you’re not sure?
…Mmm. Don’t know for certain. Could be other ones I don’t recall.
This is just the one that stands out the most.
Some make more of an impression.
Indeed.
And you are attracted to this woman.
Not in a typical way...physically she wasn’t anything special.
And yet your fixation persists.
I suppose it’s the queerness of the whole episode–not her in particular.
But she does seem to be a centerpiece.
I guess. What about the cloud? That seems to have no subtext? I mean, it seems to have some sort of bearing to me.
And you hesitate to pursue concentrating on her more.
You’re really focused on this person…you almost seem…
What.
Nothin.
She appears to have more relevance than any other symbols you came across.
Really. And what made you have that conclusion? How do you just filter out every other image?
Because: the other images aren’t as complicated as this woman. Do you really believe that a storm cloud is as dynamic as this figure?
I wouldn’t know. If you think it is this important.
Well, I wouldn’t say it’s cause for total alarm. Seems more an impression of some prevailing feeling upsetting you. An anxiety not quite on the edge of consciousness. But we can flesh this out further; sort of assemble it like a jigsaw.
Really? That’s how it works?
Sometimes. Often. It depends. Many cases that’s how it works, although the details are different and mandate a certain revision—improvisation—some nuance soul to soul.
Soul.
And you have no running impressions?
Not sure. My guess, this woman is some aspect of your psyche manifest as an avatar. She is trying to tell you something about yourself. She could be turmoil; she could be an alarm, some sort of presage.
Presage?
I am trying to speak to myself as a woman I never met.
Don’t read too far into that—you’re neurotic, not Cassandra or Proust.
Thanks.
You know what I mean.
Well, thanks anyways. I guess we’ll see what gets dug up next adventure.
I guess we shall.
†
I told you last time that she was wearing a blue sweater.
Yes.
Well I was wrong. It was actually pink, now that I think about it. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was pink, I believe.
Pink.
Yeah. Pink. Like I said, I think it’s pink.
It is.
Yes. It is.
What?
Nothing.
No nothing—you always say nothing but nothing almost never means nothing.
Fine. I thought you weren’t experiencing these thoughts anymore, I thought they were in the past.
Dreams, not thoughts.
You know what I mean.
And yes I guess I am still experiencing them, as you say. But what difference I can’t possibly imagine.
Well has it occurred to you that they might be changing? Has it even entered your mind that we may be dealing with a whole different kind of beast, if this is true?
A pink sweater makes you believe?
I’m just saying.
I suppose. None of it seems that important to me. Everyone recommended me here. I’m not the one on a soap box pontificating metaphysics—this is supposed to be your expertise. That’s why I’m here I’m told.
I understand.
Yeah. All of this is like clockwork to you, where does that leave everybody else? Where do we draw the line from life and just a folder in some—drawer?
It’s not that easy.
Damn right. THERE is no shelving our life into some compartment of void and then resurrecting it whenever an appointment is called upon us. WE have to live here.
Well, right, I don’t just forget about you.
And I’m not projecting either, my problem is with YOU not my mother, I don’t wait around blaming her all day. As if putting a note on a diagnostic somehow detaches you from the grit, from the sweat and grease of this stupid wheel, this spindle of nonsense.
If you say so, but I disagree.
That sounds like something you always say. I don’t get that.
I don’t know how else to be but the way I am.
There it goes again. Why don’t you just talk like a normal person? Why are all of you cold and remote? You sound like the confessor boxes in that one George Lucas movie, I might as well be talking to stone, then I’d least feel somewhat part of the natural order.
Or a skull, then you would be poetic.
Yeah.
Me being open may help you but it won’t help me. I’m a person too and I have my own problems to worry about, if I just became a reciprocal being I might risk…
What?
Well I’d think twice.
You were going to say credibility, weren’t you? Because if you somehow showed some sliver of humanity I wouldn’t take you seriously. Well, guess what: if you don’t you just seem like a complete tool. And I don’t mean in the sense of being a douchebag I mean an actual tool, as in――
As in inanimate.
Yeah.
I was standing in the men’s room the other day—just getting done washing my hands—when I didn’t notice before I thought about it I was wiping my forehead—I was wiping my head like I knocked it and was bleeding. I wasn’t. I looked in the mirror—was clean—no pain. But I’m standing here thinking I’m bleeding—I felt—believed—was bleeding. So I kept wiping the spot still, not really thinking, half thinking. Until I realized that was almost the exact spot I knocked my head falling off my bike as kid…but if you asked me yesterday I would have never told you that ever happened
…would have no memory of it.
Strange how the mind and body work sometimes, isn’t it?
Yeah.
I can’t account for that—I honestly can’t. But what you just said happens to people all the time. We go and go and things just ―― run away from us sometimes.
This is it, isn’t it?
What.
This is, what’s supposed to happen. This long serpentine walk—all back to this shit.
More or less.
It’s not an exact science.
Correct.
The woman——
I don’t know. Seems to escape me more and more. You may never know.
I see.
Some things, are almost impossible to unravel. That’s just the way it is, I’m sorry.
I have a friend at work. She’s really charming.
Really.
But I don’t think about her all the time. She’s just sort of an anomaly.
You work with her?
No, were not really coworkers, I mean, she works in my building but we don’t—ever—work together.
I see.
Yeah.
And you see her――infrequently?
Yes.
But she looks like this woman?
No. She’s black, dresses a bit chic: the woman in my dreams looks like Pam from The Office.
This is intriguing.
Glad I got your attention.
Sorry if you felt you lost it.
(Sort of a half chuckle)
Do you feel like she resembles the woman in any way?
Not really, physically or otherwise. The woman in my dream is a puzzle to me, her look, statements, actions, or lack of, make no sense to me; they’re a complete riddle. It’s as if she has no answers but the images presented.
Indeed. Sometimes the answers are the facts on display and there is no larger conclusion. The little clues build up to nothing, are actually just bits of small realities for themselves: standalone components, sadly.
How anticlimactic.
I know. I guess that’s just how it is sometimes. The more we think about something the further we get from any sort of coherent answer, or conclusion to take from it.
Interesting.
†
