The first night, I dreamed,
We three ran roof top to roof top of the dilapidated neighborhood.
There for the wrong side of the tracks [sic. haven] provided by Amy A’s abode.
Mary C. ampersand Julie Ann B. (two grace filled people who took a sharp veer on the Christian side to which I’d never relate).
We ran atop house `o house til the abrupt end o’ the block.
Four stories high was the final structure, condemned, that used to house god knows what.
Mary C. at the far edge.
Me at the opposite far end.
Julie Ann B. cheated away from my edge like a 1st base runner poised to steal 2nd.
The house does a pendulous sway.
We all freeze.
Having seen Amy A. (a few hours prior) make an untested, brazen, leap,
resulting in a ten foot multiple tumble into a rocky canyon.
We could not see her, but her howl could curdle milk.
We quite and in quiet acted in diligence.
Holding the space of the present tense
While immediately looking to one another
And then the other.
Are we in harmony? How are we distributed?
Does the outfield (us) need to shift?
And then we three dance and (re)distribute our weight.
Slowly and gracefully descending to the ground.
With a hand and help from one another.
Leverage exploited.
Physics.
No words exchanged or needed.
In perfect peace and health.
Hours later we reunite with Amy A.
I cannot gauge her. In health or worse for the wear?
Rode too hard and put up too wet.
This much is clear.
Amy and I wait tables under a skinny, reformed Cody B.
I keep forgetting that is my purpose.
No one else cares. My tables moan but move on unfazed. Not angry, despite slow service.
The following night, I dream.
Mary C. (far on one side) , Julie Ann B., again, nearly cheated from my position on the polar, more precarious, side
We, all three, find ourselves (precariously) alit.
This much is clear:
The ledge will withstand two of us, not three.
My edge is the most likely to give way.
I feel tired and glad.
Like my path does not follow theirs anyways.
I tell them to shift their weight toward Mary C.’s edge while I test my edge.
Julie Ann B. sees my intention clear.
She pivots across the broken plank making my edge the most lethal.
She and I now share the same bit of ledge.
She hugs me.
Her back to the ledge
Her feet pointed to mine.
My heels pointed barnward.
She is now poised between me and the free fall I was glad, nearly excited to make.
My life now hangs with hers,
Instead of alone.
I feel sad, but loved.
And yet she increases the likelihood of us both dying.
With her additional mass
On the already precariously split wooden plank.
I feel deep disappointment at having to take her mortality and life into consideration.
I’m not committing suicide, mind.
I’m moving to a new plane. I’m more than prepared for it.
But what was proper for me (letting the plank split, myself fall, into the mystic. Unafraid)
Was not proper for her.
She was still here.
It occurs.
What I mistook for wood is cheap alloy
Perhaps. I think,
I could smash the back of my head into the barn
Until the alloy gives
And we could three slip in.
Reverse Head smash one: alloy gives several inches.
I am encouraged.
I look at Mary C. on my far side.
She sees my intent.
Nods.
No words needed.
Julie Ann B., still clasped about me in a hug,
screams
She has a much more frightening perspective than Mary C., or myself.
The quicker I do this the better.
I think.
She will panic and inadvertantly pull us off the ledge.
I’m fine with this, but it is not proper for her.
Reverse headsmash 2
Reverse headsmash 3
None hurt me.
Each produces more give in the alloy behind us.
A shadow encroaches from over our heads.
Pressing forward.
From our backs.
The back of the barn
Directly behind us.
Directly overhead.
All encompassing.
Reverse head smashes, without pain, continue.
No panic in my mind.
No true bravery either.
Just a desire to get JAB inside the barn.
My mind fears the shadow is from a UFO.
The biggest airborne ship I’ve ever seen.
How could it not be alien?!
Panic for the haven of the barn’s interior now.
Reverse head smashes continue.
Sans hurt.
I feel a wet trickle
I feel scraping, like forest branches, from behind my head.
Cutting my temples, face, neck, and shoulder tops.
Nothing hurts.
I just feel blood run on my face and neck.
Barely.
I realize I’ve broken us into the barn’s interior.
I twist and fling Julie Ann B.
into the hay loft immediately behind us.
Mary C., who has never weighed more than 100lbs, jumps across
To my ledge, I catch her hands and propel her inside the loft.
Still on the ledge. but safe now,
I turn to see the fearsome shadow’s progress overhead.
I realize it is just a regular commercial jet
But it is about to crash into the field ten feet away.
We have hay behind us.
I worry the heat of the explosion’s backdraft will ignite this dry material.
I expell loud nonsense in an attempt to say all this as a warning.
The plane crashes.
I wake up.
I’ve been sweating hard in my sleep.
WrittenCasey 