allow me to tell a story.  a story in reverse.  it has to be in reverse. 

don't read.

i "wrote" this story on friday.  it kills me to have let so much time has pass before actually writing it.

FRIDAY

its five o'clock when i roll into work, its still dark. its been another night of sleeplessness.  of restless tossing.  i blame it on an old matress.  if there's somthing i don't have a history stuggling with its sleep.  it must be old matress.  what is it like twenty years old, maybe older.

i go into work.  i get my coffee, we set out. i am rushing now.  these aren't the essentials.  to the point.

we arrive at the job.  six o'clock now.  we begin to unstrap the truck only to be told that we can't work until seven.  they don't have a work permit and there's condos close by.  we're told.  not until seven.

this means it nap time.  at least for me this is what it means.  its freezing outside, there's three off us huddled up in a tiny little cab.  it must've looked funny.

so this is were the story begins.  me+2 in the cab of a truck.  two cups deep in coffee.  its cold, still dark....then

i find myself on small island, on this lake, a lake i have been to before.  we have a tent set up.  who's we? huh. there's lindsay, i think andrea is there too.  several others, all explore people.  its strange becasue the rest of the campout is a scene from highschool a guys campout. a wierd amaglam. 

but i know this camp-out.  i know that boat that is coming.  its the girls coming to break up our "guy" time.  play a joke on us.  what anticipation, what excitment.  only, its not girls at all, its my parents that are in the boat.-- i know alright.  please don't analyze me here.  they're just here and i'm sure it doesn't mean anything. -- they get out of the boat.  we say hi, they start talking to some of the explore people but this starts to fade out a bit, the details becoming blurred.   i suddenly become aware of a growing anticipation.  i'm becoming excited, agitated, i try to get my dad's attention, to pull him away from the conversation he his having.  he doesn't listen at first. the feeling grows, i feel like i might explode if....'if what?' i'm thinking, aware only of the feeling, not quite putting my finger on its cause.

its only as i get my dad's attention, pull him aside (out of earshot of the others) and we're half a leg's length deep in water.  only as i crouch down, lower my voice, and whisper into his ear that i become aware of what i realize i have known all along. the source of the situations 'wierdness' and of my anxiety.

'its a dream!' i whisper...but its a shout of a whisper.  if only i can make him understand. 'its only a dream! we can do whatever we want!' he is not a character of my dream but a character of life that i am only coincidentally meeting in my dream. 'we can do anything'

but already, the vacous expression on his face conveys that my effort is futile. he looks as someone might if a loved one told them they had decided to quit their job, take up the guitar, and become a recording star.  incredulous yet just supportive.  'ok, that's great.'  but he doesn't say anything. he doesn't have to.  i know that look.

i can't waste anymore time. i am a man with a word from on high.  i man with such hope, such possibility.  i can do anything.  this is resounding in my head. i become conscious of myself smiling.  i realize that i am not smiling in my dream, but in the truck.  i am semi-conscsous of myself now, alseep, coffe mug clenched somehow in my thighs...i pull myself back, afraid to loose this moment of clarity.  this rare moment of clarity.

i start to wade into the water.  thinking what to do.  but i know already...i'll fly.  but honestly i'm not quite sure how, i'm afraid i might wake-up.  'how?' i venture further into the water, not wanting to go too deep, not wanting the resistence the water might pose.  its silly i know. and then, then i just do it.  i just think it and....i'm flying.

only really its more like floating.  i'm floating, resting, sleeping, just hanging there in the sky.  i can't tell you my joy. i look back onto the beach.  they're all out there, my parents, explore.  they're cheering for me.  for my accomplishment.  but i have things to do.

i'm being propelled down the river. i am suprised by the surrounds, suprised that things just crop up, somehow beyond my control. its beautifull to see the river from up here but i am amazed that i seem just to be observing an actual river, not one i know, but also not one i have created (i assume the one i would create would be much bigger, grander).  i go on like this.  at one point i come to an almost dead end in the river, an eddy. the water becomes dark here, murky-- thick, i finally realize, really thick. the current doesn't even effect this liquid substance. it dives beneth it though.  i can tell this. the rapid movement giving way to a slow, deep, churning. it looks calm but i know that its power would pull me straight down.  i start to desend here. like i am losing the ability to fly.  i'm sinking.  i feel myself in the truck.  can hear the deep, straned breathing.  mouth breathing.  i am probabbly drooling now.  i am threatened to leave this new reality.  i pull myself back in hard.  not ready, not yet.  i make just to the bank before coming down.  i stare into the bubbling murk bellow me, stand up and fly away again.

this goes on.  my in out of my sleep.  this dream continually threatened by reality.  i come finally to a dead end.  a real dead end.  the water piling violently on the rocky edges of the cliff before me.  disappearning under it, churning back on itself, spittin up water twenty feet away, only to do it all again.  no outlet.  the river just ends.  i think about drowning.  think of the adventure this might afford. its only a dream after all. somehow though i don't have enough forethought to do it. maybe not enough practice.  maybe i'm just not ready for it to end yet.  maybe death is just simply that scary a prospect.  anyway, this is on my to do list for next dream. 

instead i want out.  and just like that start float straight up.  i amazed also again at the extent to which i control myself in the dream but not the surroundings.  i am only an observer here.  odd.  i float up and slowly the rock walls turn to textured drywall, white paint, a light switch, a small window, now a room.  i am with people. i want somthing different though. i start to protest to make the people different people, the situation different. it serves only to make me more conscious of myself, sitting there, sleeping in the truck, mumbling, breathing heavily.  and then i am up. not quite awake.  but i am alive with excitment.  not quite sure what i just experienced, not quite sure that this wasn't real.  not quite sure what was real. 

the guy starts to tell us what to do with his products. i start concentrating real hard, trying to make him say 'go home,' 'take the day off' i honestly try to fly. but my legs start to feel heavy, my mind starts to focus in. all of the sudden i'm back. but not without questions. 

THURSDAY

i'll try to be quick.

i'm on a job.  for some reason i have the truck.  i know i shouldn't be driving it but it was just real quick.  no big deal.  i'm fiddiling around with the straps on the back, i'm waiting for someone i think.

then all of the sudden i see my old friend. a buddy from highschool known only as 'donkey.'  he's just like he used to be.  full of excitment, unpredictable, youthful, happy yet somehow disturbed.  he seems real happy to see me. we chat, talk about old times. he's just like he used to be i remember. somehow this makes me nervous.

he's about to leave. we say it was cool to meet up again and then all of the sudden, inexplicably, he jumps on the back of the truck. onto the extended boom.  apparently there's switches back here that control the whole truck. like one of those genie lifts. he looks down at me.  gives me a mischieveous grin.  i know he's just joking around, thinks he just joking around.  it doesn't quench the nervousness i have.  he slams the truck into forward motion, driving like a mad-man up the narrow seattle street.  i am panicing now.  he's going fast but navigating well despite the swaying of the boom and the slight swearving. finally at the top he looses control a bit.  just scrapes the side of this car and a building.  somehow i feel relief as i see him get off.  still smilling. a look on his face saying 'i got you sucka.'  he's about to give me a high five when all of the sudden the truck starts to roll back down the hill.  he didn't engage the emergency brake.  it moves slowly at first, then builds speed at an incredible rate.  its out of control now, careening down the hill.  the truck hits a house and goes straight through it, then another, straight through that, down the road.  i walk by the absoulte wreckage of the houses.   workers already outside picking up carts full of fractured peices of drywall.  the remnants of there homes.  i think about calling work.  what joe will say.  how i will explain myself.

oh shit! i say to myself. legitimate. but i'm paniced now. oh shit! oh shit! oh shit! i just keep repeating it over and over again. its matching my breathing, it is my breathing now. oh shit! oh shit!

then i wake-up. suddenly. oh shit! oh shit! i am repeating over and over in my. panting. sweating. i am freaked out. oh shit! oh shit! it hits me.  hits me all of the sudden.  i am only dreaming.  what am struck by, i mean not now looking back, but right at that moment, what strikes me as completely odd, is how i am forcing this to happen. i can feel my body force itself (i interuped it i htink by being awoken) to produce this feeling. i can feel myself propell these words forward. i don't know how to explain it.  but this is what struck me right then.  i was creating this feeling, i created it!

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what does it mean call a dream less real then reality? this is a question i don't fully know how to anwswer. to what extent do i control my reality? my dreams?

make no mistake we live in the matrix. how many possible ways could i have dealt with that final dream. how many paths were open before me? that is a crazy question. why did i behave as i did? what did it help?  what about real life. how many precieved barriers do i allow to hold me back? how much is reaction?

honestly this dream changed me. i had all this stuff to say about it that day. i knew though that it wouldn't stay fresh, that like all dreams its reality would slowly slip through my fingers. i wanted to write it to retain this feeling i had. but its too late. all i know is that there are several boundries that we live our life under, never daring to enfringe. my conclusion. i don't care if its gravity or a negative self image..i see absolutley no good reason to take such things as boundries, no good reason to accept this fact. none.  somehow i feel like hegel would agree.

"Oh, if I were doing nothing only out of laziness, Lord how I'd respect myself then. Respect myself precisely because I'd at least be capable of having laziness in me; there would be in me at least one, as it were, positive quality, which i myself could be sure of. Question: what is he? Answer: a lazybones. Now, it would be most agreeable to hear that about myself. It means I'm positively defined; it means there's something to say about me. "lazybones!"-now, that is a title and a mission, its a career sirs. No joking, it really is. By rights I'm then a member of the foremost club, and my sole occupation is ceaselessly respecting myself."

as much as i dislike all things old, never have i stumbled upon such an author as fd.

.........................................................................

i heard about this new study today that is getting alot of press. apparently you can quit smoking, get regular exercise, and eat plenty of vegetables and increase your life by 14 years.

to me that's like saying 'if you take a longer lunch break, stretch between tasks, and wash your hands after using the bathroom you can add 3 hours on to your work day.

i guess some people like their jobs.

.....................................

"It's going to rain tonight"

"It's raining now" I said

"The radio said tonight"

"Look at the winshield," I said. "Is that rain or isn't it?"

"I'm only telling you what they said"

"Is it raining," I said. "Or isn't it?"

"I wouldn't want to have to say"

--Don DeLillo White Noise