I went to sleep on a bed of putting-green perfect bermuda grass in some shitty southeastern coastline city with tall palm trees and golf carts. It was comfortable and warm, not that oppressing heat so common down there. I only remember fleeting images as I rose and walked around the long weeping willows reaching so desperately for a sip of water and I'm sure their roots were reaching even further, strained into splinters, breaking into water veins and disturbing the peaceful golf and old person community where I was. It became clear to me that these images were mixed with my grandfather's cross-legged pose of unabashed honesty of why he chopped "every goddamned tree down" over their estate.
Anyway, I kept walking and found myself inside a bed and breakfast laden in mostly white vinyl siding and blue shutters. The top floor was mine for the night and David sat up there concentrating at the sewing machine with crumbles of shiny crystal weed bits scattered and then piled into the center right in front of the shiny stainless steel needle contraption. He packed the maroon piece pretty tight and we smoked, not saying a word, but letting our minds float into another world of sheer cynicism, however silent and controlled within the cages of our brains. And he smiled at me a couple times. The sun was setting over the perfect lawn and the old men were getting into their dinner clothing and out of their plaid golfing clothing.
It was sudden and abrupt, how she entered, but she did so with such ownership and entitlement that it didn't even startle me. It reminded me of my own mother coming into my room, gazing over the piles of clothes with that skeptical look, which said, "you better clean this up or there will be hell to pay." This old lady, with flowery printed sweatshirt and robin egg blue jeans, pulled halfway up her back, came in and ruffled the sheets on the beds, looked at the piece, and didn't blink an eye. She shuffled the books, mumbled something to David, and looked at me with a really serious stare and told me, "I've got a bad feeling about you." I scrunched my eyes and didn't speak and she raised her hands. "I just don't know about you. I feel something bad." I kind of hung my head in shame for releasing negative energy because I really was in a complete state of bliss at the time, but her comments made me think. I felt my body quiver on the bed and I wanted to wake, but my brain kept saying, "shhhhh, let's just see what happens. We NEED to know what this is." And I did. I waited it out and she left, but nothing happened.
David and I took the piece and walked in the moonlit putting-green grass and sat beneath a palm tree and kind of bullshitted about this and that and smoked some more, but nothing ever happened. I kept thinking of the old lady and then my alarm rang. The images lifted and there I was back in bed. Wondering about it, but not in a fearful way, more in an excited way, I told Dave on the train and he raised his eyebrows. That was it I guess...
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