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In which I must crawl through a small hole to enter a cramped sleeping space...

I'm in a familiar house with extended family. I climb up a rickety attic ladder to a small opening in the ceiling that leads up to a storage loft. The space is small and dusty. There are blankets thrown across the floor and curtains on the wall. It smells dank, and I have to crawl on my hands and knees to pass through. At the end of the space, there is a tiny hole which I can only fit through by first stretching one arm and shoulder through, then my head, then the other arm and shoulder. I feel compressed and stuck around my rib cage, but once I get both my arms through the other side, I'm able to push the rest of my body through and pop out on the other side. I'm now in a larger attic room with an A-frame roof. The ceiling in this room is high enough that I can stand up fully in the middle. There are four mattresses on the floor in this room, and two of them already have suitcases and clothes near them. Somehow, I realize that the other two are where R and I will stay. I think what a hassle it will be crawling in and out of that hole every time I need to change clothes or sleep.


In which I'm sharing a bed with a man who is presumably my lover...

I'm sleeping in a bed with an older bald white man. As we are in the bed together, I assume he is my lover. I think of how I need to get up soon to let the cattle out to graze. The man is snoring. I'm pretty sure he wants to have sex with me, and I'm wondering how I can wake him up and get it over with before the cattle start to become restless. I remember a dream that I had many years ago in which this same man took me regularly to his house for hookups despite my not really knowing exactly how to initiate anything with him and despite him never really having much to say to me. His house was dark with blue lights. There were heavy carpets on the floor, and blankets and curtains draped across the walls and furniture. His bedroom was empty of any personal items, just a room slightly larger than the bed with nothing else in it other than a digital alarm clock. I start to wonder if that was really a dream or if it really happened. Did I really dream about this man before I met him?

Then another woman comes into the room. She tells me that he has lately been paying attention to her. She sits on the edge of the bed and we discuss how she is going to attract him and take my place, and we plan how she can do it in such a way that I can return to driving the cattle.

In which I'm riding a unicycle toilet...

We are still at K & S's house, but their parents and R's parents are all present as well. I excuse myself to go to the bathroom. The toilet seat is on top of a six foot tall unicycle, leaning in the corner of their hallway. I climb up to the top of it, bracing my arms and feet against the walls of the hallway corner, and eventually pull my pants down to place my butt on the toilet seat on top. Then I strap myself in. I have to keep pedaling to balance myself while simultaneously trying to shit into the seat. This requires me to pedal the unicycle through the house, all around the family in the living room and kitchen. I say that I'm embarrassed about this and I apologize to everyone, but they all just shrug their shoulders and keep drinking chai. It's normal, everyone has to poop.

In which R is having a heart attack but it takes me a long time to notice...

R mentions he doesn't feel well. I'm ranting about Pine Island Capital Partners so I just nod at him and continue. Then I notice he's sweating. I walk over and feel his cheeks, and they're balmy. I notice his eyes are foggy. I ask what symptoms he has. He says he's having severe chest pains and struggling to breath, that he's been having a heart attack for an hour at least. I ask why he didn't say something before. He says he did, but that I can't stop yelling about the military industrial complex long enough to listen to him. I place a cold wet towel on his forehead. He asks me why I'm doing that, and I say it's what people do in Victorian books when people they love are seriously ill.

In which Lucy turns into a tiny snake...


We leave Lucy in our parked car in front of a gas station while we go inside. After a short time, I see that she is running across the lot up to the glass store front. As another customer exits, he holds the door and she runs in to my side. I'm telling the clerk that she's well behaved when she starts to lose control of her back legs and they splay out to the side. R catches her with one hand on either side of her waist and tries to pull her up, but as he does so, she starts to pee. I rush over with a piece of cardboard and slide it under her to catch the mess.

She immediately transforms into a tiny snake with Lucy's face, ears and tongue. She's no more than three inches long and only as wide around as a pencil. I cup her in my hands for safety then walk outside which is now a swimming pool. I'm standing about breast deep in the water with Lucy the snake cupped in my hands. She's wiggling and sliding around. R says she is a snake and therefore a natural swimmer so I release her into the water. But she immediately sinks. She's so small that I lose sight of her.

I shout at everyone in the pool to remain still so I can find her. I spot her under the water, but someone's motion pushes her away and I lose her again. I start to scream and panic. R tells me to calm down as she's already dead. I tell him I know she's dead already but that this doesn't mean we should let this version of her suffer the pain of drowning. We see her again and scoop her up to safety.

Then I place her in R's small whiskey glass. She coils her tiny snake body in the bottom and lets her Lucy face lean over the edge of the glass, her eyes bright and ears alert and tongue panting. I ask her if she's happy. I worry that she's hot, so I hold the bottom of the glass under the water in the pool so that she stays cool and dry.

In which people from the trucker convoy and a guy from a podcast are staying at my house...

Trucker convoy people arrive at my house demanding room and board. Tom Sexton is with them, wearing a skimmer hat and a wrinkled flannel shirt with a pin-on badge that reads Press. I stand on my front porch begging everyone to wipe the mud off their shoes as they push their way into my house.

Everyone is loud and demanding food so I rush into the kitchen and start cooking shepherd's pie. My counters are conveyer belts and the ingredients come to me faster than I can assemble them. I put green jello on the bottom, hamburger meat on top, then mashed potatoes and cheese on top of that. I serve it to the truckers. A woman trucker with a shaved-underneath haircut takes a picture and posts it on Instagram. She labels it #JelloTrudeau and everyone laughs as if this is spectacularly witty. They start chanting Let's Jello Brandon! over and over again, then they scoop the jello up in spoons and flick it with their thumbs, flinging green jello across my muddied house.


In which I discover a secret room under our bed...

I'm vacuuming under the bed when the edge of the hose gets snagged on a nail in the floor. I push the bed aside to investigate, and I see light shine up from around the sides of the floor board. I use my rotary cutter to remove the piece of wood as if it were fabric, then I lift it out. I look down into a dining room with a rustic wooden table set before a stone fireplace. An old woman kneels in front of it, rubbing two sticks together and trying to start a fire. I shout at her to stop because her fireplace has no chimney and it would set my bedroom on fire. She tells me that while my house would've indeed burned down, it would've given me immortality but now I've spoiled the ritual. I ask her if she's the one that set the porch fires in Sequim, and I rush outside to see a deer in my garden box eating my tulips.

In which Lucy and I see aliens attack...

We're upstairs at night. Lucy is looking out her side window. She barks and bounces for my attention. I come and sit on the ottoman to see. Over the strait, I see what looks like a falling star. When it gets close to the water, the sky lights up with a series of flash bombs. Then I see the silhouette of a stealth bomber, back lit from the explosions; a sonic boom from above shakes my house. The aliens have invaded, and the US military is at war with them. Finally, I tell Lucy, something is happening which will end all of this and allow for the possibility of an afterwards.

In which we attend R's dad's wake...

R and I drive a white van up a treeless green hill with mountains in distance. We arrive at a Swiss chalet style building with a large parking lot. A man in a suit greets us and takes us into a foyer where a clerk behind a counter has us sign a registry. She asks us some questions and places a neon green visitor's sticker on our shirts.

We walk down the hall towards a glass partition with a sliding door that leads out to a terrace. Outside, there are several raised rectangular platforms, and R's dad's shrouded body rests on one of them. There are no benches or chairs. We see V sitting on the ground beside their dad's body. Their dad is also there. He's healthy. He's wearing his glasses and a green and brown woolen sweater with his collar cuffed neatly over the neckline. He smiles at us and waves us over. We sit next to V but their dad continues to stand. All four of us look at the shrouded body.

More people arrive. People walk around and chat with each other. I don't know most of the people. After some time, I exit the terrace through the glass wall and walk back down the foyer. I run into a blonde man who knows me but I don't know him. He is just finishing with the clerk and placing his visitor's sticker on his shirt.

He greets me and asks about the wake. I tell him that everything is very peaceful and that R's dad is also there. He tells me that this happens sometimes, that some people believe if you attend your own wake, you must be a ghost, but he's not sure what he believes. This surprises me since I had not thought about R's dad being a ghost. I tell him that I am surprised by this though it makes sense. He says that it might not be true, no one knows for sure. He asks me what R or V thought about it, and I realized I didn't mention it to them.

In which I have a tiny man in a matchbox...

I'm screwing a hanging hook into the dry wall. I miss the stud so the hook falls out, leaving a dusty hole in the wall. A beam of light shines through, and I put my eye up to the hole to peer in. I see a man running desperately towards me as a large orb of light moves across the sky chasing him, like the plane after Cary Grant in North By Northwest. I cup my palm beneath the hole and the man leaps into it. I slam my other hand against the hole, blocking the orb. The tiny man is safe!

I place him in a matchbox with some tissue paper and bread crumbs. I bend down close to him to hear his story, but his voice is too small. I speak to him, but the sound waves blow him backwards off his feet. He puts his hands over his ears and doubles over in pain. I must figure out how to feed him, water him, keep him warm, communicate with him. Suddenly it all seems like such a chore. I consider squishing him like an ant and then remind myself that though he's ant-sized, he's still actually a human being. What a burden!


In which I have a new job as a nanny...

I'm wearing baggy pants. The kids are elementary aged and we are in a large stylish upper middle class house. They are in a basement playroom, chasing each another around a faux bamboo bar that looks like it hasn't been used in years for anything other than storing Amazon boxes. I'm bored with the game but attempting to appear engaged. I'm aware of the nanny cams watching me. I must seem patient and friendly.

My pants keep falling down. I hide behind the bar out of sight of the camera and pull them up. I try to tuck them into my underwear to make them stay. Every time I take a step, they fall again. I reach for a blanket on the play room couch and wrap it around my body like it's a toga. My pants fall to my ankles, but I'm covered now in the blanket. The kids' mom comes down the stairs and sees me. "We're playing frat house," I tell her. She disapproves. But here we are, basement bar, bratty kids, toga...

In which I have several short dreams...

One - Lucy has turned into a sun bear. She doesn't seem to mind.

Two - Lucy and I are walking down the ramp into town. There is a small black bear picking blackberries off the vines growing over the railing. We must edge past it without scaring it. I'm more than a little scared, but it does not occur to me to turn around. I drag Lucy past.

Three - I'm on a visit. N is there. We argue about the upcoming election. It's tedious. She's smug and infuriating. I feel rage.

In which I mustn't interfere with the horrors of nature...


There's a discarded porcelain basin sitting among tall grass in an abandoned lot, frequently used for dumping, near my house. From afar, I can see that it's heavy with a deep sink and a large ribbed area for drying dishes. I move closer to inspect if it's cracked. And I see a bundle wrapped in a blanket.

I pull on the edge of a blanket and reveal an infant inside, dead, with a dog leash wrapped around its neck. I untie the leash, toss it aside and pick up the body.

Back in my own house, I show it to my mother. She already knows about it, she explained, and if I don't want to get wrapped up in this, I best return the body to where I found it and replace the leash in exactly the same way.

I return to the empty lot, walk over to the basin again, only this time the leash is now wrapped around the neck of a second swaddled infant. This time the baby is still alive, but struggling, gasping for air.

I know that I'm not supposed to intervene. I'm like a nature photographer, filming a hyena eating a struggling gazelle. This is just how things are. I shouldn't have come here in the first place. I shouldn't have interfered. I need to put things back exactly as they were.

I set the struggling baby aside in the grass. I replace the dead one in the basin where I found it. Only I realize that the leash is now on the struggling baby's neck. I reach into my pocket and pull out one of Lucy's leashes and I wrap it around the dead baby's neck.

I walk away, leaving both of them in the field.

When I get home, I tell my mother what I've done. She says I'm a fool for using Lucy's leash- now it can be traced back to me. The authorities will think that I strangled the dead baby. I realize she is correct.

I return to the field a third time. I remove Lucy's leash from the neck of the dead baby in the basin neck. I remove the first leash from the neck of the struggling baby in the grass. Now relieved, the baby starts to cry. I replace the first leash around the neck of the dead baby, wrapping it tight. Then I wrap the body back up in the blanket and place its in the basin.

Then I turn to look at the struggling baby, crying and gasping in the grass. I turn around and start to walk back home, leaving the baby there. The baby will die, probably in the night, and that will be it.

All I can think of is what each moment must feel like. The baby is cold. The baby is suffering, second by second, gasping for air, hungry. I think of the gazelle, feeling the hyena rip its flesh.

I go back to the field a fourth time. The infant is now a few months old. I see it's a little girl. I pick her up, and she stops crying. I can see the marks on her neck from the leash that strangled her, but she appears fine. She has curly strawberry hair. I take her home.

I wonder if she'll be brain damaged. I give her a glass of milk and string cheese. She smiles. I feel immensely guilty, horrified with myself. How could I have left her there in the first place?

I'm suddenly incredibly stressed by this question. How did I leave a struggling infant alone in a field? I try to think of the logic behind it. There was some reason. I can't think of what it is. I'm suddenly terrified. How will I explain this to anyone? What will I do with this child? Could I really be such a terrible person as to go home and leave her there alone to die?

The anxiety wakes me up.

In which R is an animated Wolverine action figure...

I'm standing in front of a plantation house in what appears to be a dry forest of Indochina. A boy in saffron robes sleeps in a hammock hanging from the heavy columns of the shaded front porch. A student monk? Why is he here? I'm about to wake him when I'm called inside to lunch.

I sit at a long table with R's family as a servant places plates in front in front of us, dishes in the center. R is there, also his parents and his brother who has brought a visibly pregnant white woman with him, who he introduces as his girlfriend. My father is there as well. Conversation is strained and awkward.

The girlfriend is nervous. If she is to be either my sister-in-law or the mother of my niece or nephew then I should attempt to build some affection or ease between us. I smile at her. I tell her I'm sure we'll become good friends.

She leans forward to take a bite then spills a spoonful of dal in her lap. To show solidarity, I tilt my glass of wine and spill a few drops on my chest. We laugh and laugh.

She announces that she's carrying twins. A hush around the table. I break the silence.

"Wow V, that means you'll have four children soon."

"Six," he clarifies. "K and S are also pregnant, one more from each."

I turn up my wine glass, drink it all in one gulp dramatically. No one says anything. Six children from four different moms. Four of the children will be infants at the same time, the other two are already teenagers.

There's a pounding on the front door. I know who it is. A monster, come to get us. I know how to defeat it too. But it means exposing our secret in front of my father, in front of V's girlfriend.

A few more pounds, then wood smashing. The monster has broken through. He runs into the dining room, so fast he's just a streak of purple. He's tiny but stocky, maybe a foot high, and he leaps up into the air to attack us.

R jumps from his chair, into the air as well. On his way up, he transform himself, pulsating and shrinking until he is also a stocky foot high action figure. He is Wolverine. Blades extend from his knuckles.

Wolverine/R and the monster crash into each other, chests bumping together, midair. Then they fight. The tumult upsets the table, smashes into the chandelier, breaks through window, continues along the front porch. We all run outside and watch them as they tumble together down the hill of the front lawn, towards the forest.

My father is shocked. "Yes," I tell him. "R is also a Wolverine action figure. I didn't know how to tell you."

The boy monk wakes up from his nap. He steps out of the hammock and waves me over. He spreads the nylon netting open wide between his hands, then pops it out in front of him as if it were a bedsheet. It transforms into a vending cart. The boy steps behind it, ducks down, then reappears as a mustachioed paan wallah. He arranges tins and betel leaves on his cart. I notice the red spit stains dotting the porch.

In which Pete Buttigieg is a dwarf...

I'm sleeping downstairs in the magic room. Slow jazz wakes me. I look towards the cracked open door, and light streams in. A small hand pushes it open

Dwarf Pete Boot Edge Edge steps in, slowly dancing, turning, spinning, snapping his fingers, stepping in time, bouncing his knees, twirling across my room, passing my bed. I sit up and stare at him. He's maybe three feet tall and wearing nothing but a diaper.

After several minutes, he dances his way to my window then climbs up my curtains like a koala up a tree. He jumps out the window and runs off into the moonlight.

In which I keep throwing up small metal balls...

I'm at an airport, coughing. There are small metal balls stuck in my throat, coming up from my stomach. I keep throwing them up. I collect them in my hands, so many I can't hold them all. I look for a bathroom. So many are spewing out now that I'm trailing them behind me. They come up with foam and bile. My hands and chin is dripping. People stare at me, and I vomit more balls.

I follow a sign that points RESTROOM. I push open swinging doors and I'm in a public pool. I must cross a dividing rope in the pool to get to the other side. I rinse my foamy hands in the pool water, spilling the balls. They float. People are disgusted. I take off my shoes and start to swim, but I vomit in the water, more bile, more balls, floating around, bubbly.

I make it to the other side and enter the door marked RESTROOM. There are women working out on weight machines. There is one toilet in the middle of the room, no sink. People line up to use the toilet. A woman sits on it, shitting in front of everyone.

In which I am married to Micheal Corleone...

I'm married to Micheal Corleone. He's young, but he does not look like young Al Pacino. I tell him so. He tells me that he's aged poorly. I agree, but I say this does not explain the discrepancy. Then I tell him I know he's been having an affair. I tell him I found out because Sonny, also, is sleeping with the same woman. Sonny is also aging poorly. This is odd, I think, since I thought he should not age at all.

I discover the identity of the woman having an affair with both my husband and his brother. I invite her to my house for a drink. When she arrives, I'm amused to see that it's Elizabeth Warren. I laugh and offer her a drink.

In which Kanye and I are Christmas giants in the Tiny World...

I was a worker at the South Pole where we prepare Christmas for Tiny People who live among us in Tiny World. To them, we are giants.

I had the magic to remove the front face of the Tiny People's tiny houses so I could reach inside and change the decor just like you might do with a dollhouse. My job was to hang tiny wreathes and stockings on tiny doors and mantels.

After some time, my manager told me I had a new assistant. I turned around to find Kanye, reporting to work. He told me he needed to make a little extra money for the holidays, and anyway he thought he should learn a backup trade just in case. All was well at first, but then he insisted that we also change the Tiny People's wallpaper. "You're not thinking big enough," he told me. "We aren't going to stop with wreathes. We are going to redecorate the entire Tiny World!"

We started on the first tiny house. We pasted a Victorian floral print on the walls, put a complete body of armor beside the front door, ripped out the kitchen and replaced it with a brick fire place, and filled a cabinet with tiny ceramic dishes- so small they kept sticking to my fingertips. Then Kanye said, "What we need now is a street urchin." And he ran away to find one.

By then, Christmas was almost over and I had not delivered any of my wreathes and stockings. For the rest of the dream, I ran about the Tiny World frantically trying to hang all the wreathes without knocking things over, but my arms and legs wouldn't move properly. I fell on tiny houses, crushed tiny trees, ruined tiny Christmas. "Damn you, Kanye!" I shouted, shaking my fist at the sky.

In which I'm working in a restaurant...

I'm working in a restaurant kitchen, frying bacon. Strips of frozen bacon are stuck together on wax paper. I pick up the entire block and throw it in a skillet, then try to fry it as if it were scrambled eggs. Some of the bacon burns; most of it remains frozen and fatty.

In which I'm searching for property...

I'm walking through downtown Houston with a realtor. There are small 100-year-old wooden and brick single-family homes scattered between the sky scrapers. The agent tells me that Houston is one of the few cities in the world where developers built around existing homes. The houses are mostly hollowed out shells needing tons of work. I keep telling the realtor that they are out of my price range. She responds by telling me how cheap they are- 450K to 500K for prime real estate in downtown is a steal. That may be, I tell her, but I don't have that kind of money. I shrug and think that realtors are never helpful.