I Dream of Phone Books
7.10.2008
"Is it raining where you are," she asks me.
I am sitting in my car with the radio playing but the volume is set to zero. The lake ahead of me is steely gray & children are still playing on the rocks. "No."
"It's raining here. I have good news: there's a storm on the way. Know that I will be thinking of you with each rumble."
In my dream I am at the mall with Ralph, a seventy-something man with a mortician's pallor & hipster jeans. We are riding escalators & elevators as he tries to help me move from one store to another. In my hand I am carrying a white plastic bag with a phone book in it. The longer I am in the mall, the heavier and heavier the phone book gets. At some point I am wondering why I ever decided to bring this phone book. What purpose does it really serve? It only gets in the way when I am in the dressing rooms. Ralph cannot help me but his presence comforts me. He is peripheral now but can sense him nearby. The heaviness of the book eventually exhausts my body and I am unable to pick up my feet. I am stuck- unable to move even one limb- due to the phone book that I cannot seem to pawn off.