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acres of mall

yelling at the kids, furious, scary. Emma, J. Michael, but mostly I was mad at Victoria.

In the underground museum we walked around until we'd seen everything, then went back to the beginning where the line had formed for the bears. We let the others go on ahead. What was she playing with? The zookeeper had an animal I had never seen. Made out of cloth and buttons and yarn. It was friendly, played hide & seek and peekaboo with her, but I was freaked. I asked what kind of animal it was. She said she didn't know, she'd found it in Guam.

Later, I found a scrap of paper:
Auntie, but nemo says she won't "cross that bridge" with me until she's "older." She kept the rotten puppet though. Guam.

sanrio store

the littlest one won the discman

they finally set them free, back into the ocean

I dreamed I visited the corporate headquarters of Everything. It was a converted warehouse full of cubicles, and there must have been something like forty people there all working at a furious pace, developing new technology, hammering out high-stakes business deals, fielding requests from the media for interviews.

I spoke briefly with Nate, who looked to be in his mid-forties with craggy, tanned good looks and a shock of salt-and-pepper hair. He didn't really have time to talk to me but did say that they might have some freelance work I could do in the near future if I felt I was up to it. I wasn't sure if I was, but said I'd be in touch. "Just do it through the proper channels," he said before heading back to the cubicle where he was working with dem bones on something I was sure I could never comprehend.

After a weekend and the first day of spring break filled with work, a chess tournament, and six flags.. I went home and crashed for 14 hours. I had a dream.

I went to work (a local arcade) and it turns out the owner had added a cafe to our business. I talked to him and he said we were going to go out of business for a week, and open up with a new name, and pretend to go into new management. This way we could win back all of our customers who had gotten fed up.

After work I went behind the store. I found a car, and I was very excited as I knew it belonged to no one, so I could take it. (I do not have a car.) I hopped in, but I was in the passenger's seat. The car started driving and I happily waited for a few hours.

Then I realized that I didn't know where the car was going. This was a very dire situation so I decided to call my friend Nancy. It was 4 am in the morning, so I wanted to make sure I was waking her up for a good reason. I thought to myself, "This could just be a dream. I don't want to call and wake her up if this is not really happening to me." Then I thought, "This is too real. There is no way this is a dream. My life is in danger." So, I called her up. She said, why don't you drive the car? And I did..

I am with a youth outfit
like the brown shirts.

We are at an assembly, where
they have built a sign to warn us

about a woman: Malog. She is
said to be unkempt and vicious.

Nobody knows where she lives,
but my cousin across the table

has slept with her. They show us
a tree that has seen Malog.

Its leaves are turned in on themselves.
It looks like a very surprised person.

They give us cocaine in tests
to shorten our reaction, but

we get shivery hearts. They put us
through trials: trial by exhaustion,

trial in water, trial of physical attack.
We float in the freezing ocean overnight.

In the morning the dogs are dead.
Helicopters come to pick us up.

I am the last to come aboard,
except for the dogs. Some of the dogs

are frozen together in floes, where
they huddled for warmth.

When I get inside they hook me
into all kinds of machinery.

The silver bullet in my anus
tells them I should be dead

from the cold. They pass it
around, stupefied. Our training

has gone so well. They tweak
my nipples, beep more machines,

and let me out behind the bleachers.
Where sweet old men are drowning

a sign in fresh paint.