Penciled names and utter dark

I saw your ghost today on the 7 train.

It was as if time and space had rearranged to age you 20 years and place you in front of me.

You were standing there, wearing your faded gray jacket and your trademark jeans. You were holding two shopping bags from stores that I couldn't discern, and you looked haggard and withdrawn. Your face was a study in cynicism, your eyes a betrayal of youth.

It was mesmerizing. It was all I could do to not stare. By the time I disembarked and transferred to the D train, I was shaken but still composed. But as soon as I sat down, your ghost sat down across from me, your bags placed neatly between your feet.

And there it was again as I transferred to the A train. And again to the F train.

Now I was convinced I was insane. I fished out my phone to sneak a picture of the ghost, just so I could look at it later and convince myself it wasn't you. Even as I took the picture, I found myself staring into the screen, entranced by the resemblance.

When I reached my destination, I strode out of the train and up the stairs with an urgency that surprised me. I made it halfway down a long, barren, white tile hallway before looking back, just to see if the ghost was behind me.

There was no one.

Now, hours later, I look at the picture I took on my phone. It's too blurry for me to make out specific facial features, but I am just as speechless.

I may never know if you were actually ever in Manhattan and making your way to Brooklyn on this brisk May evening... but I know I still miss you.

Weathering the tepid chill within

I rarely have bad dreams. Usually, they are either whimsical or completely off the wall (see this entry here). More often than not, they just make no sense. And out of the bad dreams that I do have, they are mostly comprised of silliness like getting into a wreck and finding out that I am a pinata, spilling tootsie rolls all over my car. Maybe 1 out of every 100 bad dreams I have are full-blown nightmares.

That said, a couple of days ago, I had the most bone chilling dream that I can remember in all of my 22 years of life.

I don't remember the nadir of my dream anymore, but I recall crouching on top of a boulder near the trough of a lush mountainside. It was so gorgeously green and vibrant; it was striking because I normally don't see colors so vividly when I dream. But for some reason, despite the beauty around me, it felt ominous. There was this menacing stillness, and this chilling disquiet. The fact that I could see everything so clearly did not help; looking back, maybe I unconsciously knew that I was dreaming, and I was unsettled that the dream was so unlike any other dream I'd ever had. I looked around me, and saw that I was at an intersection of two paved but unmarked roads, and that I was sitting in the north quadrant. I don't know how I knew this, but upon recognizing the other landmarks at the intersection, my sense of direction just clicked. My boulder was about ten feet from both roads, and behind me the land just faded into woods. To the west, the trees were less dense, but the land sloped toward the ridge of the mountain. To the south and to the east, there were sparse rows of innocuous houses, each of them slate gray and completely unassuming. It felt like home.

I sat there for awhile, scanning my panoramic view of my surroundings, listening intently. It was still dead quiet, and I couldn't quite figure out what I was listening for. I was a total loss for what I was trying to do. As I looked around, I noticed that there was virtually no movement anywhere: no wind through the trees, no wildlife scurrying about, no shadows in the windows. After awhile, I started to feel incredibly vulnerable and exposed from my vantage point. I shifted from feeling utterly baffled to leering into the distance, searching for another pair of eyes that I felt were on me.

Eventually, I heard the low hum of an engine in the distance. From the foot of the mountain, to the southeast, I spied a motorcycle with an indeterminate amount of passengers racing toward me. As it got closer, I could see a man at the helm with a woman clutching onto him from behind, her long black hair flailing wildly behind her, hanging onto him for dear life. Whatever the speed limit was, they weren't obeying it. They crept closer and closer toward me, and soon they were close enough for me to see their faces.

The man's face was a study of determination. His eyes were dark and veiled, his brows weighed heavily upon his face like they carried the weight of the world. His mouth was fixed into tight grimace broken only a nervous twitch that made it look like he was biting his lip.

When my eyes shifted to the woman's face, I saw that she was looking right at me. A chill went down my spine. At this point, I was exactly perpendicular to their trajectory over the summit. With her wild hair everywhere, I couldn't see anything but her eyes, and they looked absolutely terrified. In that split second where they were the closest they would be to me, I knew they were fleeing. I looked at her, she looked at me. I couldn't have actually heard her if she said anything to me, but at that moment I heard in my mind the message that she was screaming at me with her eyes:

What are you doing? Why are you still here?! Get out! FOR GOD'S SAKE, GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!!

And then they were gone, speeding uphill toward sanctuary. And suddenly, I realized why I was there. I had gone to search for a way out of. Everyone else had disappeared, and as far as I knew, I was the only one left. I scrambled down from the boulder, briefly contemplating sprinting after the motorcycle and escaping on foot. However, no sooner had I hit the ground than I was knocked breathless by a sudden sense of dread and subsequent realization: I wouldn't make it. I looked down the road from where the couple had originated, and scanned the horizon nearby. I couldn't see anything, but still my feeling of dread multiplied and multiplied until I was nearly blind with panic. I knew that even if I couldn't see it, it was coming.

I sprinted into one of the houses, not even knowing or caring which one I chose. I had a singular goal: to hide myself as well as I could. It would be my only chance. I raced from room to room, looking for a crawlspace or something to squeeze myself into. I stumbled into what appeared to be a child's room and stopped dead in my tracks. There was a small girl of about 3 years playing absentmindedly with a doll. She looked at me sheepishly, and went back to her doll. Without thinking, I scooped her up and delved deeper into the house. I knew that there wasn't a single suitable hiding spot anywhere in the house, and that it was too late to rush into a different house. I had to make do.

I settled into the space under the desk in the study, cursing at myself for choosing such a prosaic place to hide, but knowing that there was nothing better. The little girl had remained remarkably calm and quiet until now, but had now decided to start mewling in fear. Panicked, I tried to quiet her, but she only got louder with her whines of protest. She didn't want to be under that desk. As I tried frantically to calm her down, I couldn't think of anything except the fact that the sound of her voice would give away our location and lead to our doom. Desperate, I tore off my jacket and smothered her mouth with it, eliciting bloodcurdling yet muffled screams.

For what seemed like an eternity I just sat there, clutching this nameless girl to me with my jacket silencing her tireless voice. There was still no overt sign of danger, but I knew otherwise. I could feel it. Everything seemed to ooze maleficence. It's hard to describe in words. I imagine that it's similar to feeling paranoid about everything and everyone. I sat there, rocking back and forth, constantly whispering Be quiet, please be quiet to the girl, praying that we'd somehow manage to stay hidden.

Suddenly, the girl stopped crying. I felt an initial wave of relief, but then I noticed something. She was looking at the wall. But instead of a wall, there was a window. In that window, I saw the silhouette of a figure against a backdrop of brilliant light. It was looking at us. I stomach sank. It reached out toward us.

I squeezed my eyes shut as the house began to crash down.



And then I woke up.

Somewhere only the shadows know

Proof that I am no longer a misanthrope:

I had a dream last night that started out with me inexplicably trying to shave the back of my head. Maybe it was the back of my neck, I'm not entirely sure. I was standing in front of a mirror with a straight razor, trying to contort myself into a position where I could see where I was aiming for. Obviously, this is nigh impossible with only one mirror, so I decide I should look for another, hand-held mirror so I could abuse geometry. It was at that moment that I realized I was calf-deep in a fountain in the middle of some city park. No one around me seemed to think it was weird that I was in the fountain, that there was a bathroom sink and vanity in the middle of it, or that I was trying to shave the back of my head/neck. So I climb out of the fountain and scanned my surroundings for a mirror, a compact, anything. I see nothing. Promptly, it begins to rain. No, it begins to HAIL. Needless to say, I haul ass toward nothing in particular, seeking shelter. I run past a bunch of fairly innocuous park scenery and reach the edge, where I cross the street, dodging (of all things) HORSE CARRIAGES and make my way into a CVS. I take a second to wonder why the fuck a CVS is in the middle of a metropolitan city, and then look for a mirror. I find a nice little compact, and reach for my wallet. I touch emptiness. I drop an F-bomb. I reach for my cell phone. Again, I touch emptiness. Again, I drop an F-bomb. At this point, I realize that I have also lost my razor somewhere and somehow. The store clerk starts to attack me with a broom, since I am apparently soaking wet and dripping all over the carpet. Yes, this CVS is carpeted. I try to fight back, but soon find myself standing on the sidewalk. Miraculously, it has stopped raining and hailing. I reason that my phone and wallet are probably at the same place. I begin to look for a pay phone so I can call my phone, and then die a little on the inside when I realize I don't have my wallet so I can't use a pay phone anyway. I see a woman walking down the street, texting on her phone. I ask her if I can use her phone; she gives me a dirty look. All of a sudden, it starts to hail again. One of them falls on her head and kills her before she can hit the ground. I shrug, pick up her phone, and call my cell. I hear my phone ringing off in the distance, faintly. Intrigued, I throw the phone at the dead woman's body and run toward the sound of my phone. After a few seconds of running down the sidewalk, the ringing stops, and I kick myself because I should have just kept the woman's phone. I look back toward her body, and see that she and her phone have mysteriously disappeared from the front of the CVS. Something hits me in the back of the head. I turn around, and see my phone lying on the ground. I reach down to pick it up, and it jumps backward. Long story short, I make a veritable Looney Tunes ass of myself as I chase my phone down the sidewalk, until I run head-first into a man. I hit him in his crotch, of course, as I was stooped over and pawing for my runaway phone. I hear him scream as we tumble to the ground in an awkward mess. I look up, and see that the man is Al Gore. He's out cold, a little vomit dribbling out of the side of his mouth. I roll him over, and discover that he has crushed my phone. Enraged, I kick his catatonic body. He explodes into a shower of Tootsie rolls and Jolly Ranchers, as if he was in fact a pinata. Right on cue, a flood of tiny children rush out and swarm the falling candy. So many of these children come out that soon I'm crowd-surfing. The children disperse and I find that I am now on top of a boulder. It starts to roll downhill (yes, I am apparently also on top of a hill), but I somehow manage to stay on top of the boulder despite the fact that it is spinning underneath me. I just sit there flabbergasted for awhile, until I hear sirens behind me. A cop is pulling me over. The boulder rolls to a standstill, and the cop steps out of his squad car, walks up to me, and starts to write me a ticket for speeding. I begin to argue with him over the idiocy of getting a speeding ticket while on top a boulder. He gives me a look, and I realize I am in fact driving a limousine. Speechless, I just accept the ticket, and the cop walks back to his car and drives off. I look down at the ticket, and see that it is actually a napkin with a ketchup stain on it. And then I wake up.


The point is, if I were still misanthropic in any way, I would never have asked that woman to lend me her phone.

A serial vantage point

I passed this sight on the interstate in my car, and it nearly ran me off the road. Isn't that a gorgeous view?

I don't know what it is about pictures like these, but if I stare at them long enough, inevitably I feel wanderlust creep into my veins.

A poorly packed mannequin

Classy dinner party at Firdaus' flat last Saturday night. Maddie and Amy came by and the boys cooked and served for the girls. Gnocchi with mushrooms (Amy got a dirt ball in one), roasted vegetables (asparagus, red bell peppers, portobello shrooms, broccoli, and scallions), and a standard lasagna, followed by cashew caramel cookies (for everyone) and coconut sorbet (for me). Then Preston and Bryan stopped by and we watched the Simpsons movie and Super Troopers... everything else is left to your imagination.

I need to work out housing with Katie and Johanna.

And I need to find a job for the summer (in Atlanta, sorry nomads). Who wants to hire me, or suggest a means of employment?



And in other news, the wheels creak and groan as they begin to turn in Kenya. The tipping point has been reached, and soon I predict there will be a whirlwind of activity yet to be seen. Keep an eye on both of these amazing individuals.