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Working Through
I dreamed this morning of being a prisoner whose term had come to an end.
I was escorted to the entrance, handed my things, told to change back into the clothing they handed me, musty with stale smoke and sweat and years of storage in plastic bags. The few hundred dollars cash that had been in my wallet was still there. They let me use the phone, since my out-of-date and expired cellphone's battery was dead as a doornail, and they wanted me out of there.
My brother didn't answer my call.
The taxi service dropped me off at the storage units where I'd told my brother to put what little stuff I'd left in the shitty apartment I'd had before I'd done time. I didn't know if he'd actually done what I asked as he'd never said that he had. He hadn't much talked to me the whole time I was in. But the key let me into the security gate around the storage units.
I went to my unit, put in the key, and it turned. The door opened, and there was all my stuff. The relief nearly floored me. My brother had paid the rent like I'd asked. In front was my construction work boots, tool belt, nail gun, hard hat, and electric screw driver and batteries. All neatly arranged the way I always did after work. The clothing bureau was to one side, as was the half-full hamper and a dump of boxes from the damned apartment. I changed right in the unit, something I'd done many times, and stuffed the prison clothing with its memories of one night of rage that had blown away four years, into the hamper. I opened the bureau, tossed the dustiest stuff on top into the hamper, and put the next layer on, clean cloth against my skin, and put another change of clothing into my day bag that lay on top of the bureau.
I knew how being homeless worked. The stuff that I needed locked up and safe was in here, everything I took with me would be at risk. I left the work equipment in here, until I found a lead on a union job, it would be safer here, no matter where I stayed. The shelters were the worst for losing stuff, but cheap hotels were no better.
But I had all the things I'd accumulated from Before, and I was ready to face the world outside again.
I was escorted to the entrance, handed my things, told to change back into the clothing they handed me, musty with stale smoke and sweat and years of storage in plastic bags. The few hundred dollars cash that had been in my wallet was still there. They let me use the phone, since my out-of-date and expired cellphone's battery was dead as a doornail, and they wanted me out of there.
My brother didn't answer my call.
The taxi service dropped me off at the storage units where I'd told my brother to put what little stuff I'd left in the shitty apartment I'd had before I'd done time. I didn't know if he'd actually done what I asked as he'd never said that he had. He hadn't much talked to me the whole time I was in. But the key let me into the security gate around the storage units.
I went to my unit, put in the key, and it turned. The door opened, and there was all my stuff. The relief nearly floored me. My brother had paid the rent like I'd asked. In front was my construction work boots, tool belt, nail gun, hard hat, and electric screw driver and batteries. All neatly arranged the way I always did after work. The clothing bureau was to one side, as was the half-full hamper and a dump of boxes from the damned apartment. I changed right in the unit, something I'd done many times, and stuffed the prison clothing with its memories of one night of rage that had blown away four years, into the hamper. I opened the bureau, tossed the dustiest stuff on top into the hamper, and put the next layer on, clean cloth against my skin, and put another change of clothing into my day bag that lay on top of the bureau.
I knew how being homeless worked. The stuff that I needed locked up and safe was in here, everything I took with me would be at risk. I left the work equipment in here, until I found a lead on a union job, it would be safer here, no matter where I stayed. The shelters were the worst for losing stuff, but cheap hotels were no better.
But I had all the things I'd accumulated from Before, and I was ready to face the world outside again.
no subject
You get smells in your dreams!? That's the one thing I don't get... no matter how vivid it is, how physically painful (I've had dreams where I've woken up swallowing a scream of pain for a sensation that was no longer there), I never smell anything... (I am now thinking about the other senses - sights, sounds, sensations are all yes, but taste? I'm frequently *trying* to eat something & I keep getting interrupted.)
no subject
I taste things, too. I remember one that had ten courses of the most astonishing meal I'd never eaten. *laughs* Including a spun sugar and meringue swan on a pool of raspberry puree and dark chocolate sauce... and a lamb chop so tender it melted in the mouth.
Yeah, wire-crossing. I was definitely male in the dream, solid, a little slow, but core good with minor breaks of bad. I had the 'knowledge' that "my" mother had died of cancer and that that medical situation had drained everything but the cash I had on me and she died anyway, and that was the core of the rage that cut loose in the bar that night I'd gotten arrested. The still-rich brother was someone I hated, and he'd come to the funeral, but had mostly stayed out of the financial whirlpool that had been our mother's death.
Damn, for all I know it might be the beginning of a book or someone just 'stepping up' in my head to be written.
no subject
And I have all five senses in my dreams as well, quite vividly. I'll remember sense memories - voices, smells, tastes - in dreams that I've neither experienced nor thought of for 30-40 years. I also talk in my sleep, cry in my sleep, and physically feel what my body is experiencing in my nightmares, including one memorable one where I was shot in the chest. (Not fun.) And I've had frequent nightmares since I was a small child. Three different sleep studies have told me I have extremely odd sleep patterns - I get almost none (really, like zero) of the deepest stage of sleep, but I'm dreaming before I'm even fully asleep - I can be dreaming and be aware of what's going on around me. I always knew I was an odd duck - I guess this explains at least some of it.
no subject
Wow... interesting about the sleep study!! And that's amazing about being able to dream and be aware at the same time. I expect your sleep patterns do affect the waking you, too.
I am known to talk in my sleep, too, but I'm grateful that my poor body doesn't always experience my dreams.
no subject
I've been wanting to read JTTW forever - I've had one version or another on my Amazon wish list since 2008! Which one are you reading, which translation? I just need to bite the bullet and buy one, darn it.
no subject
I was thinking more like Gogyo, with the whole brother complex. *laughs* And I can't, for the life of me, see Sanzo being a construction worker. But I'm probably not going to use this guy for a fanfic. He's... we'll see. I do like the idea of doing and sharing more fic sooner rather than later.