Ratchet’s Dream Diary — May 15, 2008

I unlock the door to my apartment building, exhausted after a long day at work. As I open the door, I find that Bonnie, my upstairs neighbor, is standing at the bottom of the stairs, her young daughter at her side. She is holding a strange bundle. She asks me, “Is this your baby?”

The baby clings to her breast like a monkey and looks like a tiny, emaciated old man with wily eyes and hollow cheeks. The child is mine, but I am loath to admit it. It stares at me with a look of indifferent recognition, its eyes alert and intelligent. I stare back, narrowly, silently.

“I found it in a crib back there,” Bonnie continues, pointing with her thumb to a nook beneath the stairs, “Do you know where it came [...]

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Ratchet’s Dream Diary – April 14, 2008

I feel anxious.

My boyfriend works for a reputed mobster who looks like Al Pacino. This Pacino character runs a chain of convenience stores. The business is legitimate in every way except that when business is slow, Pacino gets a bunch of his employees together and they put on masks and rob the stores of his competitors.

I feel anxious because my boyfriend is out on one of these stick-’em-up missions. I am in a gray-green warehouse, waiting for them to return. Somehow, I am a nurse.

Their van squeals into the warehouse. Pacino jumps out of the passenger-side sliding door in a rage, berating one of his employees. He is ripping his ski mask off, gesticulating wildly, saying, “You call that a hold up? My grandmother knows how to hold a gun better than you!” My [...]