lucyoncolorado

In which my feet have been amputated...

I’m sitting on Grandma’s back patio sipping a drink and talking to my brother. He is complaining about a pain in his legs. I laugh and point my gold-tipped, brass governor cane down at my own legs. “At least you have feet!” I tell him.

Then I look down at my amputated stumps. I have no feet at all. This realization causes me such a surge of horror that I wake up with a jolt.


In which I have crackers for brains...

I’m in a hospital bed after a car crash. I can hear the conversations around me but I’m unable to respond or move. My mother and R are there, and they decide I need a brain transplant.

The doctor lays me across two sawhorses with the crown of my head hanging over the edge. With a circular saw, he cuts off the top my skull and then drills hinges into the two parts so that it can be opened and shut like a trunk. Then he reaches inside my head to remove my brains. I see what he pulls out: several cardboard boxes containing packages of Lay’s peanut butter crackers.


In which I'm a rock reporter in Rome...

We are in Rome. I’m a reporter assigned to interview a pop star. Beneath an arch of the Colosseum, the musician has placed an over-sized, antique Louis the 16th armchair where he sits to receive questions from the press. The chair’s wooden frame has ornately carved designs around the red velvet upholstery of the backing, seat and arm rest. It’s tacky, like a cartoon throne. Because of the chair’s ridiculously large size, the pop star sits upon it like a child in a grownup chair; his legs dangle and don’t touch the ground. He cracks a joke about the colossal size of the chair and the colossal importance of this interview.

The pop star is in disguise, and no one knows who he is. His face is painted clown white, and his hat is pulled down over his eyes. Someone has painted black designs all over his face so that he looks like a Dia de los Muertos skull, only his cheekbones have been made to look like eyes, his mouth has been made to look like a nose and his chin has been made to look like a mouth. This trick completely changes the appearance of his face so that no one recognizes him.

I’m standing in the crowd of reporters and photographers who are shouting questions and taking photos, but I’m no longer feeling interested or ambitious enough to cover the stunt. I know it’s Bob Dylan. I recognize him immediately but I don’t tell anyone. I’m irritated that he is in my dream again, but I don’t become lucid.