Tag: dreams

I hold a woman’s hand. Her husband is dead, buried long ago in a cemetery somewhere in this state of rain and gloom. She tells me it was cancer of the lungs. He smoked heavily. Her eyes are hidden beneath flaps of skin as she discusses his shortcomings and the outright failures of his long life. He worked at a bank, owned a store in the sticks, they had no children. They are a beautiful couple whose long history lines the cabinet near the kitchen table where we sit. Their wedding photograph is in sepia tone. Two smooth skinned young people, far younger than I am now, embarking on something as foolhardy as lifelong commitment. I hold her hand because I am there with her. They tremble when she becomes emotional. My own coarse hands do what they can. They accomplish far more than any word could do.

I hold a woman’s hand. Her husband is dead, buried long ago in a cemetery somewhere in this state of rain and gloom. She tells me it was cancer of the lungs. He smoked heavily. Her eyes are hidden beneath flaps of skin as she discusses his shortcomings and the outright failures of his long life. He worked at a bank, owned a store in the sticks, they had no children. They are a beautiful couple whose long history lines the cabinet near the kitchen table where we sit. Their wedding photograph is in sepia tone. Two smooth skinned young people, far younger than I am now, embarking on something as foolhardy as lifelong commitment. I hold her hand because I am there with her. They tremble when she becomes emotional. My own coarse hands do what they can. They accomplish far more than any word could do.

We stop and ask for directions to the falls. Up the road, they say. We go. Up, up the road. Little birds flutter in the dried fields searching for desiccated meals. The crows have followed me here as well. I want to be an assassin, I say. And have us live out here where I cannot be found. You tell me they always find where the assassins live. They do, in the movies. This is real life. I would not want to be the best anyway. I don’t want to be the president of assassins. Or king, you say, but this is America, and you are sweaty. I tell you you’re sweating. Hot flashes, don’t look at me. You look beautiful. I stop glancing at you in the rearview and look out across the fields again. I don’t even see a mountain. There can be no falls. Local tourist trap fuckers, and scratch the back of my hand. I think of moving my seat back to make room for a good blow job, or pulling over for more. Hot flashes is a preemptive warning like a frog’s blue spots. Later is best. The dashboard is dusty and free of litter. This is an almost new car. I turn the air up and you smile. The air is more dry than I expected. You say, I know, it’s terrible. The sky is too clear for a day like this. It will swallow us whole. We do get to the falls, the meek river flowing into a pit in the earth. This is not the time of year to see them. When we return, and I am an assassin, we will be sure to visit again.

We stop and ask for directions to the falls. Up the road, they say. We go. Up, up the road. Little birds flutter in the dried fields searching for desiccated meals. The crows have followed me here as well. I want to be an assassin, I say. And have us live out here where I cannot be found. You tell me they always find where the assassins live. They do, in the movies. This is real life. I would not want to be the best anyway. I don’t want to be the president of assassins. Or king, you say, but this is America, and you are sweaty. I tell you you’re sweating. Hot flashes, don’t look at me. You look beautiful. I stop glancing at you in the rearview and look out across the fields again. I don’t even see a mountain. There can be no falls. Local tourist trap fuckers, and scratch the back of my hand. I think of moving my seat back to make room for a good blow job, or pulling over for more. Hot flashes is a preemptive warning like a frog’s blue spots. Later is best. The dashboard is dusty and free of litter. This is an almost new car. I turn the air up and you smile. The air is more dry than I expected. You say, I know, it’s terrible. The sky is too clear for a day like this. It will swallow us whole. We do get to the falls, the meek river flowing into a pit in the earth. This is not the time of year to see them. When we return, and I am an assassin, we will be sure to visit again.

This time, I was an agent of sorts, possibly with the DEA. We were one of those rogue units that doesn’t play by the rules, gets results, and skims some off the top because the money gets burned anyway. I even wore the aviator glasses so that fuckers could see themselves in my eyes when I shot them dead.

We were driving up the highway to a cantina on top of a deserted hill in a town in Texas. It was dry, like the hairy skin on my sun baked arm was dry, like my lips were dry, like the bones of a long dead man are dry. When we arrived it was silent, but we could see the back of a lifted pick-up truck poking out from behind a stucco facade.

“Arms up,” I told them. I may have been the leader of these bad ass motherfuckers.

We strolled to the entrance and called out, “Afuera, cabrones!” When we looked inside, it was empty.

But we didn’t see that they had set up on the roof and were pinned against the walls by a hail of gunfire. As hardened and solitary sons of bitches, we didn’t give a fuck. We strutted out, nines in each hand, perhaps a shotty up front, and took them all out. A shower of blood, bits of skin, the occasional spilling of intestines.

When we were done, we walked away.

As I opened the door to the Bronco I noticed that one man in a federale uniform with a single briefcase and an uzi ran out and sprinted for the truck. I brought out my nine and unloaded in his direction, but oddly, he didn’t fall dead. He in fact managed to raise his weapon and aim, and more surprisingly, he got off a few shots, and against all odds hit me square in the chest, twice. Two holes, two sharp hits, right around the heart. I stumbled back and said nothing. I could no longer speak. I wanted to tell them, after they killed that bastard, to tell someone something. I wanted to tell them to relay a message, but they could not hear me and I could not hear them. Eventually, they disappeared.

I could not speak. Darkness was coming in from all sides, like the edges of a worn film reel. I was coming to a close.

I dipped my left index and middle fingers in the pool of blood forming beneath my waist. As I began to fade I wrote this in the dusty concrete:

L O V E

Y O J

And then I died.

This time, I was an agent of sorts, possibly with the DEA. We were one of those rogue units that doesn’t play by the rules, gets results, and skims some off the top because the money gets burned anyway. I even wore the aviator glasses so that fuckers could see themselves in my eyes when I shot them dead.

We were driving up the highway to a cantina on top of a deserted hill in a town in Texas. It was dry, like the hairy skin on my sun baked arm was dry, like my lips were dry, like the bones of a long dead man are dry. When we arrived it was silent, but we could see the back of a lifted pick-up truck poking out from behind a stucco facade.

“Arms up,” I told them. I may have been the leader of these bad ass motherfuckers.

We strolled to the entrance and called out, “Afuera, cabrones!” When we looked inside, it was empty.

But we didn’t see that they had set up on the roof and were pinned against the walls by a hail of gunfire. As hardened and solitary sons of bitches, we didn’t give a fuck. We strutted out, nines in each hand, perhaps a shotty up front, and took them all out. A shower of blood, bits of skin, the occasional spilling of intestines.

When we were done, we walked away.

As I opened the door to the Bronco I noticed that one man in a federale uniform with a single briefcase and an uzi ran out and sprinted for the truck. I brought out my nine and unloaded in his direction, but oddly, he didn’t fall dead. He in fact managed to raise his weapon and aim, and more surprisingly, he got off a few shots, and against all odds hit me square in the chest, twice. Two holes, two sharp hits, right around the heart. I stumbled back and said nothing. I could no longer speak. I wanted to tell them, after they killed that bastard, to tell someone something. I wanted to tell them to relay a message, but they could not hear me and I could not hear them. Eventually, they disappeared.

I could not speak. Darkness was coming in from all sides, like the edges of a worn film reel. I was coming to a close.

I dipped my left index and middle fingers in the pool of blood forming beneath my waist. As I began to fade I wrote this in the dusty concrete:

L O V E

Y O J

And then I died.

I saw my daughter again. It’d been so long that I am surprised she returned in such vivid detail. I thought she’d gone away forever, to be honest. Her hair was short, what I believe they call bobbed. Dark, dark hair, darker than mine even, black as the Pacific ocean in January. Her eyes were so luminous that I wanted to cry. They were not my eyes, so they must have been her mother’s. She wore her small yellow dress, the one she’d been wearing for years, and the small white sandals that are identical to the ones I wore in old photographs from my time as a child. I smiled in those photographs and my daughter had my smile, her little cheeks so wide and crinkles formed already at such a young age. Her skin was a beautiful tan, the skin of my girl, a daughter of the sun. She stood in the hallway and extended her hand out to me, never spoke a word. I took it, so small a thing, and had to hunch down to keep her grasp in mine. She led me out into the backyard where a yard packed sky high with junked cars loomed over us. They were graying and rusted, the color having been weathered away by too many fierce storms and long, hot days. She bravely led me through the shadows of the automobile necropolis and I felt myself become heavy, large, nearly dragged along by necessity and her courage. My daughter was courageous. She was unafraid and free and strong enough to keep me going through the ever-darkening wreckage. We marched on for a long time as my beard grew thicker, my hair grayer, and the top of my head lost all shape save for the rounded top of a dome. When at last I was too old to continue my daughter turned a corner and pointed to the horizon. There I saw a light, not as in a tunnel but as a wide swath of gold across the visible world. She was indicating that we were nearly there, whatever the destination, and so I continued with her, never letting go of her hand. She began to skip as we neared the light and I told her to go on, to go and enjoy the light. I was too old and tired to continue. Her face contorted as she shook her head. She was angry with me, and sad that I would abandon her when we were so close. I was so tired. She held on and stood with me, waited for me, until at last I relented and stood, marching onward. The final distance nearly me killed me until at last we stood on the cusp of the first rays of light. I breathed in and prepared to lead her into the light, prepared for my own death. It was not as I had expected. Instead of death and dust I became strong again. My then-tattered clothing filled with muscle and strength and my youth returned in a fraction of time so miniscule that I fell to the ground to keep from floating away. When I stood again, she was at my side, and smiling. I looked out across the place where she had led me and saw the ocean, like the one in Mexico where the water was warm and clear. She sat down on the sand and looked out across the water, silent as ever. As I stood there I decided I did not want to sit, nor wait for anything more to happen. I grinned and swooped down to take her in my arms, my daughter, my life, and when I looked into her eyes again I felt a joyous pain so strong in my own that I held her to me and cried into her shoulder, still grinning. As I hugged her, she finally spoke.

“Please don’t run away again.”

“Never, niña preciosa,” I said. “Never.”

I placed her on my shoulders and she giggled when the waves of the ocean slapped against me, against us, causing me to shake a bit but never falter, never let her go.

I saw my daughter again. It’d been so long that I am surprised she returned in such vivid detail. I thought she’d gone away forever, to be honest. Her hair was short, what I believe they call bobbed. Dark, dark hair, darker than mine even, black as the Pacific ocean in January. Her eyes were so luminous that I wanted to cry. They were not my eyes, so they must have been her mother’s. She wore her small yellow dress, the one she’d been wearing for years, and the small white sandals that are identical to the ones I wore in old photographs from my time as a child. I smiled in those photographs and my daughter had my smile, her little cheeks so wide and crinkles formed already at such a young age. Her skin was a beautiful tan, the skin of my girl, a daughter of the sun. She stood in the hallway and extended her hand out to me, never spoke a word. I took it, so small a thing, and had to hunch down to keep her grasp in mine. She led me out into the backyard where a yard packed sky high with junked cars loomed over us. They were graying and rusted, the color having been weathered away by too many fierce storms and long, hot days. She bravely led me through the shadows of the automobile necropolis and I felt myself become heavy, large, nearly dragged along by necessity and her courage. My daughter was courageous. She was unafraid and free and strong enough to keep me going through the ever-darkening wreckage. We marched on for a long time as my beard grew thicker, my hair grayer, and the top of my head lost all shape save for the rounded top of a dome. When at last I was too old to continue my daughter turned a corner and pointed to the horizon. There I saw a light, not as in a tunnel but as a wide swath of gold across the visible world. She was indicating that we were nearly there, whatever the destination, and so I continued with her, never letting go of her hand. She began to skip as we neared the light and I told her to go on, to go and enjoy the light. I was too old and tired to continue. Her face contorted as she shook her head. She was angry with me, and sad that I would abandon her when we were so close. I was so tired. She held on and stood with me, waited for me, until at last I relented and stood, marching onward. The final distance nearly me killed me until at last we stood on the cusp of the first rays of light. I breathed in and prepared to lead her into the light, prepared for my own death. It was not as I had expected. Instead of death and dust I became strong again. My then-tattered clothing filled with muscle and strength and my youth returned in a fraction of time so miniscule that I fell to the ground to keep from floating away. When I stood again, she was at my side, and smiling. I looked out across the place where she had led me and saw the ocean, like the one in Mexico where the water was warm and clear. She sat down on the sand and looked out across the water, silent as ever. As I stood there I decided I did not want to sit, nor wait for anything more to happen. I grinned and swooped down to take her in my arms, my daughter, my life, and when I looked into her eyes again I felt a joyous pain so strong in my own that I held her to me and cried into her shoulder, still grinning. As I hugged her, she finally spoke.

“Please don’t run away again.”

“Never, niña preciosa,” I said. “Never.”

I placed her on my shoulders and she giggled when the waves of the ocean slapped against me, against us, causing me to shake a bit but never falter, never let her go.