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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 [...]

Ratchet’s Dream Diary — February 27, 2007

Upon arriving at my parents’ home for Christmas, I walk into the sun porch to find my mother decorating for the holidays. She is hanging a green garland around the windows; she looks back over her shoulder to say hello.

There is a bench to my left, where she has placed an array of white, textured, life-sized plaster models of people who are dead. They are all dressed in festive clothing, and cast in playful positions. A frozen woman leans back laughing, one hand pushing the shoulder of a plaster man wearing a red sweater with a snowflake design embroidered in white. His tongue is hanging out of his open mouth…hysterical with laughter or hysterical with fear…it’s impossible to tell the difference. A final scream before an untimely death?

To the right of this hellish Old [...]

Ratchet’s Dream Diary – November 29, 2007

I am standing at the window of my office in Midtown Manhattan, looking at a white marble building across the street. The white building has 6 holes in the side, about 40 stories up. Each hole is about 5 feet in diameter, has a short rim and is arranged in a 2×3 grid. I notice that there are creatures poking out of these holes. They look like the heads of birds, but they are reaching their necks and beaks up like newborns. Their feathers are a slick black against the clean surface of the building.

These enormous birds are being born out of the holes in the white building. The first of these birds shoots out of its hole, and as it does, it shows itself to be more of a bear shaped beast that [...]