Daydreamer

The teachers were concerned, leaving notes for Mom and Dad regarding my “staring out the window” during class. Daydreaming they called it, the politically correct term for something more sinister, such as bad parenting or inferior character, their “go-to” conclusions in those days. Social anxiety, depression, the autism spectrum, and other so called mental health conditions were not yet common terminology. This was the seventies.

“He should visit with the school shrink,” they suggested.

“Let’s find out what he daydreams about while staring out the window, so we can address the situation.”

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Imaginary reader

The writer imagines a reader, the one who desires to know the story, and the story behind the story, which is the writer’s own story. This imaginary reader, the one to whom the writer writes, is the writer reversed and inside out, reaching into the world, searching for one real reader, a living and breathing human being who wants to know the story, and the story behind the story – the writer’s story. Human connection!

Please don’t shoot me dad!

Dad, please don’t shoot me in the back, I thought to myself. I’d been retrieving pellets from the wooden board used for our target practice, when the vision of him shooting me from behind appeared. Several times, I turned my head for a sideways glance, making sure the gun was not pointed at me. Dad just looked at me and said nothing, but the Larkin boys laughed heartily at my paranoia. I thought of my ancestors lined up at the edge of mass graves, waiting to be shot in the back, one by one, like a factory line of executions; the soon to be executioners finding humor and a perverse justice in their victims’ predicament.

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Recycled memories

Did I remember to take my medication last night? I remembered, I think, but is this a memory of having remembered other times – a composite image of taking my pills twice a day, 365 days a year? Or do I remember the actual event of consuming my medication last night?

I search my mind, vividly imagining the two white pills, one being small and round, the other shaped like a caplet of Tylenol. I visualize my hands removing the bottle caps, taking out each pill and laying them on the couch beside my left thigh – a repetitive ritual initiated by me twice a day, once in the morning and once at night, rarely with any variation. I pick up and place the round tablet on the back of my tongue, and then the caplet, washing them back with some cold water, to descend my throat and do their thing, which is to lower blood pressure, slow heart rate, and eliminate palpitations.

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Desert heat

If you believe in Satan, then imagine him as a trickster, silently positioning the potholes of life where you are most likely to trip and fall into them. Watch your step! – David M. Rubin

My love, have you noticed those seemingly perfect specimens of men living at our desert complex? Oh yes, I know that you’ve noticed them, as I’ve noticed you noticing them, with their enormous muscles, cryptic tats, and whatever else that fascinates you about them. They sit around the pool – 24/7 – with cold drinks, smiles, laughs, and the pretense of texting someone; all the while watching you…always watching you…keeping one eye on you, sometimes sneaking snapshots of you wearing THAT BIKINI purchased in 110 degrees of desert heat. Required pool attire, we now call it.

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