Going to bed with 15

"Everyone was there."  

"Oh you mean the desert.  Of course that's what you mean - the place where you desire, no?  Tell me about 'everyone'."

"Well, everyone at least that has been on my mind lately.  And yes, the desert.  Is it desired?  I can't be too confident about desire within the dry world both fake and real, but the dust formed wisps around us and rolled along the 20 mile stretch as silent as a bubble with the speed of a panther.  The stretch of desert was as far as my eyes could reach, and I have 20/20 vision you know.  I had never witnessed such an expansive line of flatness.  I remember thinking of the lyric 'cause every place I go, I'll take another place with me'.  The past was all present, and everyone, well my everyone, seemed confused."  

Thinking with a head tilt

"It was some sort of treasure hunt.  A wicked game.  They carried me home."

"Whose 'they'?"

  

"Two boys, I knew them both.  They carried what used to be my 16-year-old-self.  Limp and distraught, I came-to with minimum memory.  It was like the same experience on New Years when I came-to in a blanket with my hands choking a coffee mug.  One of the boys, my particular favorite, had lost a bright salmon and purple Nye sneaker.  He wasn't aware that he lost a shoe, or maybe he didn't care to notice.  I reminded him it was there, sticking out like a sore thumb amidst the linear brown paths. 

We pinpricked and molded our way through the crowd.  I recall encountering a mafia family in the living room - glued to the TV and silent.  There sofas were crimson while their still shadows vibrated on the dim walls.  Our presence was unknown.  It reminded me of Pleasantville."

Sits down in a quiet upper west side pre-war building.  There's dust on the bathroom floor and cream cheese stains on both desks.  The desks are adjacent to the window.  The window muffles sounds of construction workers and big machines.  Golden Jesus in three ways stares at the computer, and she never looks up.  Buddha is there too, as well as a solar calculator, blue post-its , a Brasilian magazine, and a blinking voicemail contraption. 

"So what happened next, where did you travel to?"

"I can't be too sure as I might be making it up.  All I know is that I went to bed contemplating solace and Wisconsin, and then I wound up in a desert and feeling wanted but still sick."