Thomas K’s Dream Diary – August 7th, 2008

When coffee is no longer a tangible thing and exists only as an ethereal question, the sharp derangement of the day has not yet reached its peak.

When this question is answered…

…you will find yourself in a wood-paneled room seated in an appropriately uncomfortable chair, properly underdressed for an occasion of analytical education.

I am surrounded by the most nauseatingly, stereotypically precocious and privileged British snoblings. An extreme emotional reaction, they still illicit, but it is one of eye-rolling snickering if not immediate dismissal given the megawatt spotlight harshly illuminating their faults, powered by the very strength of their caricature. Something of a ratio that eats itself…

A very Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes dancingly leads the class in solving an unknown crime. People, places, things, and events that are not in and of themselves crimes, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]