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 boyfriend strolls around the side of the car from the driver’s side and stands in front of me for a moment to demonstrate to me that he is okay and to give me a look that tells me that I am an idiot for worrying so much. These are professionals, after all.

The boss is still carrying on, and when I am satisfied that my boyfriend is, in fact, fine, I notice that the boss has been shot in the leg. Also, the more he waves his arms around, the more he becomes Mel Brooks. This must be why they keep a nurse around.

I know it will be my job to fix the boss’s leg up, but it’s sort of a crap shoot deciding when I am supposed to step in. I don’t want to interrupt his rant because I don’t want to become the recipient of the boss’s wrath. On the other hand, I can’t be negligent in my duties.

The Pacino/Brooks boss and his employees disappear behind what looks like a miniature hangar door inside the warehouse. I wait for a few moments. No one tells me, but I now know that the boss is not merely injured. The boss is dead.

The boss is dead and it is now my job to change his clothes. I must take him out of the black leggings he was wearing to rob convenience stores and into an expensive gray suit, like something he would normally wear. This way, when his body is found, he will not be suspected of wrongdoing.

I slip back behind the door where the boss/Pacino/Brooks’s body is. He is laid out on a metal gurney and he looks different again. Shorter, even shorter than Mel Brooks.

I hesitate for a moment, not wanting to touch the corpse. But, it’s my job, and I know there’ll be hell if I don’t get it done, so I close my eyes, grab the black stretch pants on both sides and pull them toward me.

When I open my eyes, I find that the boss’s legs are missing. Or rather, they’re extremely foreshortened. His legs curve into teardrops at around mid-thigh, and at the ends of the teardrops are a pair of teeny tiny feet.

I am so surprised – and so charmed! – by the discovery of these adorable feet that I cannot contain myself. I begin to gurgle in baby talk,”Ooooooooh, look at the wittow feetses! Ooooo, little feetsy weetses!”

I know, although I cannot say it, that the boss is not really dead. He is faking his own death to escape retribution for the crimes that he has committed. We are playing out this charade to make the news of his death seem more convincing. So, as I babble in baby talk, this Pacino/Brooks/boss is aware of his humiliation, secretly hating me and begging god for his ordeal to be over.

I want to stop, but I can’t. The footses are just too mini and cute. The river of baby talk will not stop.

End dream.