i dreamed that my daughter went missing. i dreamed that i had dressed her up in a couple of layers of clothing, all green, and sent her out into the backyard to play with her brother for a few minutes while i finished up the dishes. it was really only a few minutes, something i've done before, because while the backyard area isn't completely fenced in, the kids do a good job out there of policing themselves for short periods, and i was going to join them right after i put the last of the dishes in the cupboards. also, leon was home and was supposed to be keeping an eye on them from the deck, where he was sweeping up the leaves that our dogwood tree rains down upon it every autumn.

only when i finished putting the dishes away, i slipped into my shoes and walked into the backyard to only find liam playing by himself under some cedar trees. "where's laurel?" i asked, casually, thinking she must have slipped into a friends' house. he shrugged. "i dunno," he said. i looked over at her friends place and saw that they were not home, their curtains were closed and it was dark looking inside. i started calling her name, louder and louder, as i walked in concentric circles around the yard. no reply. leon's ears were perked and he soon joined me. we kept liam nearby as we widened our search to the rest of the complex, out beyond the pool (which i very heisitantly looked into to be sure she hadn't somehow scaled the fence and fallen in), and into the parking lots. there was no sign of her. i began yelling in earnest and could feel the blood pounding in my ears. leon and i decided to split up and cover the areas of the complex that were out of earshot of our unit. i walked up through the corridors between townhouses towards the playground on one side, he walked up the other. the whole time i was thinking we'd find her at the playground, that she'd gotten it into her head to go up there alone. but she wasn't there. leon and liam and i met at the slide, and though i wanted to cry, i tried to keep it together. we decided to walk back slightly different ways, calling her name ever louder, until we got home. and if there was still no sign of her, we'd call the police.

which we did. leon then went out to knock on the neighbours' doors to ask if anyone had seen her. i stayed at home with liam, who went downstairs to watch t.v. while we waited for the police to show up. i was panicking deep inside but trying to remain calm on the surface for liam's benefit, who still seemed unworried and even slightly oblivious. she could have walked into anyone's unit, told them that we said it was alright. leon was going to find her just a couple of doors down. he had to.

but that didn't happen. instead as i was standing out on the front stoop, watching leon go from door-to-door, i saw the police cruiser pull into our parking lot. leon stopped his canvassing and walked over to talk to the cops. they said something urgent to him and he looked up at me and said, "they've found her, i'm going with them, i'll call you!" and before i could demand more information he jumped in the car and they sped off. i walked back in the house, choking back tears. if they'd found her, why hadn't they brought her home? something had to be terribly wrong. i tried to busy myself in the kitchen, mindlessly wiping the counters, boiling the kettle for coffee i wouldn't drink, reorganizing the bottles of soaps and detergents near the faucet. liam came upstairs and asked if they'd found laurel and i said yes and that she would be home in a little while, daddy was just going to pick her up.

the phone rang a short time later and it was leon. "she's here, at the hospital," he said, but his voice was funny, like he had something stuffed into his throat. "is she okay? is she okay?" i asked, frantic. "she's here. they found her, lynn. she wandered off into the street and she was hit by a car. she's here and they found her." "but is she okay?!" i screamed into the phone. liam perked his ears up from his seat at the dining room table where i'd fixed him a small sandwich. he walked over and put his hands on my hip. i started crying when leon didn't answer right away because i knew. i knew before he even said the words. "she's not. she's not okay, lynn. she was hit by a car going 60k and she died on the way to the hospital. she's here and i'm going to see her in just a few minutes. they want to clean her up a little before i see her to identify her. but she's here, at least we know she's here." and he dissolved into tears on the phone, and i fell down on my knees in the kitchen and began to wail, the phone clattering across the floor, liam falling down with me, putting his hands on my face and trying to look me in the eyes. i lay there screaming and sobbing for a long time. liam started to cry too, though i still hadn't said the words to him, he knew what my reaction meant, and we laid on the tile together, crying and crying forever.

"maybe it wasn't her," i said, "maybe it wasn't her and it was someone else's baby and when leon sees that he'll call again, liam. he'll call again and say, they were wrong, it's not laurel, go outside, keep looking, call her name some more. and we'll find her. we'll find her again. she can't be gone. she can't be." and liam was nodding and smoothing his palms against my cheeks hoping to stem the flow of tears that were so upsetting for him to see pour out of my eyes. but when the phone rang again, leon didn't say that. he said it was her, that he'd seen her in her little green outfit. and he was sobbing, too. and then i threw up.

the dream then shifted to a day or two later. and my mother was in the house with me, trying to help me get up out of bed, get dressed. she'd arranged a funeral, a real catholic funeral, a mass for our daughter. she wanted me to get dressed to go and i was stubbornly not co-operating, still trying to cling to the idea that it was not my daughter who had died, as if refusing to go to her funeral would make her come to life again. but my mother insisted and pulled a black dress over my head. i yelled at her for setting up a catholic mass, none of us were catholics anymore, none of us, we hadn't been in a church since the last family wedding where no one took communion because it had been decades since anyone in the family had confessed or attended service, my daughter wasn't even christened. and she forced my feet into shoes and said that laurel could be admitted into the church and accepted into heaven if we all went to this mass and said prayers and sang hymns and i wanted that for her, at least, didn't i? and when i screamed at her no! it was all bullshit! she slapped me across the face and and screamed back, "you are coming! she is your daughter! you will do right by her!"

and then the dream jumped again and we were shuffling into the church and i was literally choking on my sobs, my legs and knees and feet completely numb and unyielding to my brain's insistance that we enter. and i could see my daughter's casket, open, at the front of the church, and so many people there were lined up to see her, to gawk at her, and i began shaking and had to press the back of my wrist to my mouth to keep the vomit from coming out. leon was next to me, had his hand on my elbow, guiding me, though to look at his face i knew he was as lost as i was. liam was on my other side, clinging loosely to my dress, looking bewildered. i did not want to look at her in the casket. i did not want to be a spectacle for all the church-goers. but i was slowly guided up to the front, where the people all turned to look at us, and parted like waves, and leon and liam and i walked and walked long up the aisle as they let us pass, and then i was looking down at her small, white face in a small, white, satin-lined coffin, in a small, white, lacey dress. and i bit the inside of my lips so hard i drew blood and wanted to throw myself over her small body. and i didn't even make a move to do it but leon sensed the urge in me and quickly turned me away from her, to force me into a pew at the front, to sit me down. and i let myself be guided because the rushing of blood in my ears and the welling of hot tears in my eyes bewildered me and made everything in the church go swimmy and raw and hot and confusing. and as my bottom hit the hard wood of the pew, suddenly a chorus of singing rose up into the air and i looked up into the balconey that hung over the pulpit, and saw hundreds upon hundreds of small laurels in the same tiny white dress she was wearing in the casket, singing, singing, singing their hearts out, all latin words i could not understand, and they all had tiny, delicate silvery angel wings pinned to the backs of their dresses and my mother was next to me, sobbing, and leon was putting his arm around my shoulders, and squeezing me, squeezing me so hard i thought i would cry out from the pain but at the same time glad for it because it kept me in my body. it kept me from flying up out of my body into that balconey where all the laurel imposters were singing for her soul, and ripping them to pieces with my bare hands, sobbing as i did it, raining blood and a mother's rage and grief down onto the congregation.

ghost story

i dreamed last night that my family and i were staying at a friend's house for a week. i don't know this person in real life. they had an old brownstone somewhere in vancouver proper, and a little boy about the same age as liam (and who looked remarkably like him, too). their house was beautiful and huge, there were two guestrooms, one for leon and i and one for our kids. the first night we were there, leon and i were cuddled up in the huge, fluffy bed, just dozing off, when i heard my daughter scream in a blood-curdling way. leon and i leapt out of bed and ran down the hall to see what was the matter. she was saying that another, older girl had come in their room and tried to "hit" her and liam. liam confirmed this story and said that when laurel screamed, the girl had dropped the "big hammer" she'd been carrying and then both she and the weapon had just vanished. no, she didn't walk out of the room. they had simply disappeared.

the rest of the house had woken up and come to see what the fuss was at this point. we all walked around looking for the mysterious girl with the "big hammer" and couldn't find any trace of her. we tucked the kids back into their beds and the woman of the house took me aside and told me that they had had a daughter some years ago, but that she had died in an "accident". she was 8 when their son had been born, and died at the age of 12. a year after she died, her apparition had been appearing in different rooms all around the house, always angry and threatening, but never doing any harm to anyone except their son, who she tormented endlessly with threats of beating him to death with a huge, leather-covered mallet. i was immediately terrified and went back to the room leon and i were sharing to tell him the news. instead of sharing my fear, in typical leon style, he was fascinated and waited up all night to see if the girl would appear to us, but she didn't.

the next day, i was somehow left alone in the house with this family's young son, while everyone else went out to run errands. he was playing quietly in his upstair bedroom and i was reading on the couch in their livingroom. suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and i got a really creepy feeling in my stomach. i looked over to the stone fireplace they had and something about the large, flat, center stone at the base of the fireplace caught my attention...it wasn't sitting perfectly flat or in line with the other stones. i got up and went over to it slowly, still feeling this eerie sensation of being watched. i kept expecting the apparation of the girl to appear, but she didn't. i tested the stone and found it could be moved quite easily out of place. as i shifted it up and onto the other cemented stones i found it was a kind of dirt-filled cubby hole, and inside were sheets and sheets of yellowed paper and photographs. as i started to pull them out i saw they were very crude children's drawings, but not of pastoral scenes and crooked houses. instead they were very violent and gory pictures of a dark-haired girl being beaten to death by a smaller, sandy-haired little boy, who was holding what looked to be a huge, leather-covered mallet. my heart started racing in my chest as i looked at the rest of the drawings, all depicting the same scene in various stages of violence. first, she was hit across the face and red crayon marks showed blood flying from her mouth. in the next picture, she was on the ground, trying to cover her head, and the boy was standing over her with the mallet raised, a grimace of anger on his small face. in the next, the mallet hit her in the head again, this time against her ear, more blood flying from her nose and mouth. and in the final picture, the little boy stood with the mallet hanging limp from his hand, over the body of the clearly dead girl.

i rolled the drawings up, feeling sick to my stomach, and tried to press them back into the hole. there were black and white photographs mingled into the dirt there, too, and i reluctantly picked them out, one by one, blowing the soil off of them. each of them was a recent portrait of the boy that lived in the house, but he was not smiling in any of them. instead his eyes looked dead and flat and black, his face slack. he was wearing a dark turtleneck sweater and looking hollow-cheeked and staring right into the camera. i flipped through the photos quickly, feeling as though this boy could actually see me through the pictures and wanting very much to not be noticed by him. in the final picture, his face was no longer entirely expressionless. instead, while he was still staring directly into the camera, a small smile played at the corner of his lips. when i peered more closely at the background of the photo, i could see a smeary impression of the dead girl standing just off to the side, also staring into the camera as the photo was snapped.

that did it for me. my heart was racing and i felt like throwing up. i knew that the boy was ill, was very, very ill, and had killed his older sister in a violent and brutal way, and i knew that the parents had tried to hide this from everyone, and suddenly, i also knew that if i took the time and effort to move all of the stones away from the hearth in front of the fireplace, and dig through the soil there, i would find her corpse. suddenly i heard noises from the upstairs and realized the boy was coming down. in a panic, i tried to stuff all the drawings and photos down my shirt because i wanted to show them to leon, and i frantically swept the dirt i'd sprayed all over the hearth back into the hole and replaced the loose stone. i managed to jump up and get back to my seat on the couch before the little boy walked into the livingroom and stared at me. i had a huge lump in my throat and was barely controlling my breathing. i said hello to him and asked him what he was up to, trying to sound nonchalant. he didn't answer, he just looked at me, and then his eyes moved slowly over to the fireplace, and then back to me. i felt a little dirt was still crusted on my fingertips and tried to hide my hands behind my back. he left the room again without saying anything and i sighed and wondered what on earth i would do with this knowledge.

finally leon and the rest of them all came back from their shopping trip, loaded down with groceries and other items. i impatiently waited for my chance to talk with leon, to tell him what i'd discovered, but we didn't get a moment alone all day, until finally, after putting the kids to bed and retiring to our own room, i had his full attention. i pulled all the boy's drawings of his depiction of the murder of his sister and all the creepy black and white photographs out and told leon i was sure the little girl was buried in the fireplace somehow. he was immediately alarmed and intrigued and we tried to decide what to do next. as we were talking, our bedroom door swung open, and there the girl stood, a smeary apparition, not really glowing but standing out from her more solid surroundings in a way that was obviously supernatural. i was so terrified i couldn't even move. leon's jaw dropped open. her hair was long and dark and she was dressed in a peach-coloured nightgown made of what appeared to be very thin cloth. she looked to be about 11 or 12 years old. she was holding a mallet in her right hand but did not raise it. instead she lifted her left hand and pointed down the hallway, in the direction of the room our kids were sleeping in, and then vanished.

i freaked, certain she was going to go to their room and terrify/harm my kids again. i somehow got it into my head that because my son looked so much like her killer she was going to seek revenge on the wrong boy. leon and i sprung out of our bed, leaving all the crude drawings and creepy portraits of the boy behind on the covers, and as we dashed into the hallway we could see the door to our kids' room swinging open onto darkness. i started to call out my kids' names, trying to wake them, to warn them, but just as my voice rang into the hallway my son and daughter both screamed in terror. leon and ran as fast as we could into their room and flicked on the light, to find not the ghost-girl standing over them, but the other little boy, poised over their beds, not speaking, and holding a wooden baseball bat. leon tackled him immediately, sending him sprawling across the wood floor, while i ran to the bed and scooped my two kids up in my arms. the kids were sobbing, liam was saying, "i never liked him, i never liked him, but i didn't do anything to him, why does he want to hurt us?' and laurel was pressing her face into my neck. leon picked up the baseball bat in one hand and the silent boy in the other, and as he turned to march out of the room, the ghost-girl appeared in the mirror above the chest of drawers. she was crying and holding the mallet still. i pointed at the mirror and told leon we had to get out of here, take all the pictures and our suspicions to the police. he agreed, and that was when the door to the room swung shut, and we heard a key turn in the lock. we were trapped. and that was when i forced myself to wake up.

as i entered the dream i knew that my daughter was dead. she had been gone for several days. i don't know how she died, i don't know why we hadn't told anyone else, i don't know why we chose to bury her in the garden instead of contacting the authorities. the thought that eventually someone might ask me where she was when they realized she was curiously absent did not cross my mind. i was, instead, simply sitting on the couch, rocking back and forth, and repeating her name endlessly under my breath. we had friends over and none seemed to notice she wasn't there. my husband was walking around the house looking shell shocked but trying to keep it together for the gathering we were hosting. my son was outside, presumeably to play, but i knew he was actually just sitting on the wet grass under the dogwood tree, staring.

suddenly, my old cat, bagheera, strolled into the livingroom, looking fresh and white and beautiful as always. this would not have been unusual had he not also died, last december. he casually leaped up into my lap, curled up, and began purring. tears sprang to my eyes as i began to pet him. he showed no trace of having been dead for nine months, or of having been buried in our garden. i cried out, "leon! leon! it's bagheera! look! he's alive, he's okay!" leon glanced over but wasn't the least bit interested in coming to see his newly ressurected cat. i was still stroking him and staring at him in wonder. how did this happen?

then we heard it. "mommy..." at the front door. "mommy..." the sound of little fists knocking and her sweet little voice. "mommy..."

i jumped up, letting the cat drop to the floor, and dashed to the front door, opening it to see my small daughter, not dead, not dead, not dead, but alive! relief coursed through my system and i bent over and swooped her up into my arms, looking her in the eyes. she was smiling at me. she also showed no sign of having been buried in the dirt under our bean plants. she was wearing her favourite jacket and had pigtails in her hair. i sobbed and laughed. i swung her around and said her name outloud. i cried. i pressed her body against mine and put my face into her hair. that was when i smelled her. she was pungent and the scent was the unmistakeable scent of the decomposition of flesh, at once both tangy and sweet and foul. i held her out from me again, looking her all over. she was still laughing and smiling. i looked around the room to find leon staring at us in wonder. there was an unspoken agreement between us to not tell anyone that laurel had died, so how could we publicly express our shock and wonder at her rising from her sodden grave? she was wiggling in my arms, the smell still rising off of her. i was at once repelled and yet i could not let her go. i pressed her to me again, deciding that it didn't matter, even if she was undead, i was still too happy to have her back in my life. if the only thing i had to get used to was the scent of decay eminating off her body it was a small price to pay. i started to let her down, so she could go play with the other children that were visiting our house, and that was when i saw that one of her ears, behind her hair, was discoloured and wilted looking. i pushed the hair back to look more closely. it was unnaturally leathery and tanned looking, brown-leaning-towards-yellowy black. her arm swung around to push me away - she wanted to go play - and when her jacket sleeve slid up with the movement i saw more signs of decay along her forearm. medium-to-large yellowish spots surrounded by the dark purpley-black rings of blood pooling in her flesh. i put her down. my body filled with grief. i knew she was still dead, then. i knew it, and i did not know what to do about it. she trundled off into the backyard, still acting completely normal.

i cornered leon and we tried to talk about what to do. how could we tell anyone what was going on when we'd never even said anything about her dying in the first place? how could we explain our reasoning for burying her in the garden instead of contacting the authorities and letting all of the official stuff happen? how could we express our shock and fear and amazement that our daughter had risen from the dead? i told him about the signs of decay on her body, the smell. we knew it would only be a matter of time before she started to fall apart completely. then it would be obvious, then we would be in trouble. i started to cry again, filled with grief. leon suggested we take her somewhere remote and drown her, or burn her, or cut her into pieces and bury them far apart from one another. i sobbed and sobbed. her first death had not been our fault; how could i say yes to ending her existance purposefully. how could we think we'd get away with it? "no, no," i said, panicking. "no. we'll take her to the hospital. we'll show them the spots on her body, make them smell her. they'll know what to do. please. we can't do anything else."

we looked out over the edge of the balconey at her playing merrily with her friends. she seemed completely normal if a little slower than usual. liam was standing beside the tree, not playing or talking, just staring at his sister in wonder and fear. the little spots and discolourations on her skin were so visible to me. i felt like i would have to watch her disintegrate over time, this way. i felt that her leaving us again was an inevitibility. i was completely seized with grief and sorrow. i wanted to pull her to me, to fill her up with love, to try and cure whatever sickness had fallen on her. but i was afraid. i was afraid of the smell of death. i was afraid that if i hugged her too hard, her skin would come away from her flesh in pieces. i woke up with tears squeezing out of my eyes.

i was in labour - transition, in fact - and i thought, "what the hell? i'm not pregnant!" but there wasn't much room in my brain for wondering about this curious happenstance, because the baby was coming right now and i was completely alone with only my husband in the room with me. i moaned and screamed her out. her head appeared first and i put my hand on her little wet scalp and peered down at her scrunched-up face. then her body slithered out and i pulled her up onto my stomach to look more closely at her. she wasn't screaming or crying and i saw that the cord was wrapped, tight, around her neck. i nearly panicked and tried to slip my wet fingers between her neck and the thick, wet cord, but it was so tight there was no room to do so. in terror i pressed my teeth against the cord and bit. it was rubbery. the baby was turning blue. i bit and bit, and finally, it sprang back with a tiny gush of blood. i looked at the baby again, definitely a girl, and she was still not breathing or crying. i held her to my chest and patted her back hard, saying, "breathe, breathe, breathe." finally she gulped back a tiny bit of air. and again. and again. and then she wailed.

i looked up at my husband, adrenalyn pumping through my body.

"how did this happen!" i cried, accusatory. "how did this happen! you had a vasectomy! how could i get pregnant!"

he had no words. in fact, he did not want to look me in the face. it was then i knew the baby was not his. i clutched her to my body. we were cold, wet, messy. leon was not helping at all. i felt little contractions still, as my body tried to expell the placenta. "i don't understand. i didn't even know i was pregnant. how did i get this baby?"

he walked out of the room, still not speaking to me, letting me alone with the baby girl, who i named rebecca. she was quiet as i pressed her to my breast, she latched on perfectly. i tried to remember...and couldn't. i tried to feel anything at all about this turn of events, but couldn't. all i felt was acute dread at having to take care of another baby, another newborn; this time, completely alone.

i was in an abandoned amusement park and robin williams was there, hugging me and talking about how great it's been to watch me grow up, ever since i was one of the children actors in "the world according to garp". "i've known you for 25 years, lynn," he said, "and you've turned into a beautiful woman." and then he squeezed my ass.

it was the night after a huge, blowout, wing ding of a party on the Flaming Lips compound in oklahoma city, oklahoma. the place was still kind of a shambles, since no one had had the wherewithall to pick up the detritus of intense fun-having of the night before. popped balloons and empty beer bottles and clothes were strewn recklessly throughout the section of the house i found myself in. i was sitting on a lumpy but comfortable sofa. the light was dim and cozy. i was wearing a blue, zip-up hoodie with nothing but a bra on underneath, and jeans. i had been trying to doze, someone had put a blanket over me, but steven drozd walked into the room and started chatting quietly with me. there was a t.v. on, at the other end of the room, with no sound. he was holding a camcorder and trying to document everything that was happening. he started filming me and i felt uncharacteristically chatty and outgoing. i flipped the blanket down from under my chin and unzipped my hoodie and impishly flashed my enormous tits at the camera. drozd thought this was hilarious and i blushed and covered up again. he begged me to do it again, so i did. that was when wayne coyne walked into the room too, and sat next to me. i asked him where steve burns was, since he was kind of my chaperone at the party. he said that steve was busy in the studio at the other end of the compound, but that he'd be back later. steven drozd told wayne i'd been flashing my breasts at the camcorder and wayne scootched over closer to me, his thin legs pressed together and his arm around my shoulder. "do it again," he said. i flushed and declined, suddenly shy again. "come on, just once more," he urged, "i want photographic evidence that i was present for such an important unveiling." i started laughing and flipped the blanket down again and unzipped the hoodie just enough to show the rounded tops of my moonwhite boobs. drozd was just very matter-of-factly filming everything that was happening, getting it at different angles, kneeling in front of wayne and i. wayne was sort of lecherously hanging over my shoulders at that point, looking straight down into my impressive cleavage, not saying anything, until finally he uttered, "i must touch them. just so." and i acquiesced and the next thing i knew his warm palm was just very gently and softly grazing the barely visible tops of my breasts, over and over again. it wasn't sexual at all, at least not for me. it felt more like i was an avatar of the goddess and coyne was worshipping at her altar, paying his respects, almost.

this went on for a while. i remember thinking how skinny his legs and knees were, next to me. his tender touch was like that of a child, a newly-weaned child, still longing for the comfort of mother's milk but knowing he'll be redirected if he gains the courage to ask for it. no words were spoken, until steve burns walked into the room and took the scene in with wide brown eyes. i knew in an instant he was immeasurably jealous and disappointed in me. i pushed wayne's hand away at that point and zipped the hoodie up to my chin. "this is how it is," steve said, "i see." i stood up and tried to think of the right thing to say but nothing came. steve turned and walked back out. drozd was still filming everything. wayne stood up and shrugged. "he'll get over it," he said. "it was entirely innocent. we are all artists here, after all."

i also dreamt that i was at the beach with my kids, and my son turned to me and said, "mom, can i have a smoke?" and i put a cigarette inbetween his lips and lit it for him, thinking "i really shouldn't be doing this!" and saying to him, "if anyone else comes along you've gotta ditch that thing!" and him nodding in a conspiratorial kind of way. god! i am trying to not put too much stock in that dream, though...because just before this had happened we were watching jeff goldblum dash, naked, through the roiling surf and he waved at me to join him and i declined. ha. as if i would ever say no to frolicking naked with jeff goldblum.

i dreamed last night that i went over to mom's and my aunt was there and she was like, this withered husk of who she was when i last saw her. i approached her from behind, first, as she was standing in the kitchen getting a glass out of the cupboard and it was obvious that she'd dropped like a million pounds and i was shocked that that could happen in a month, and then she turned around when i said, "hi auntie," and i nearly fell to my knees from shock because her whole body was completely withered and wrinkled like those shrivelled apple head dolls, and saggy and her cheeks were hollow and she just looked...i don't know...sick. and i started crying and saying, "oh auntie, why, why, why?" and she slapped me across the face and yelled at me, "do you really think i looked better 100lbs heavier?!?!" and i kept crying even though she hit me and i said, "you don't understand, you did, you did look better! and this is like...it's like you're hurting me that you did this!"

then the dream changed, and i was in serbia or bosnia or chechnaya or somewhere obscurely eastern european like that. it was like a big group holiday my family and i had gone on with my mom and our friend S. we were having a good time, researching our ancestors or something, but as we were leafing through folders in this green, dusty back room in a town library people started yelling outside and there were gunshots. we went to the doors to see the military moving through the streets, firing on what appeared to be unarmed civilians. we panicked and ducked under tables and tried to hide in between the stacks of books and file cases and waited until the soldiers had all passed to actually step out into the street. a man approached us and asked us if our rental car was parked across the road in this gated parking lot and we said yes. he gave our friend S. a tiny key and said he could go over there and take our belongings out of it but that we could no longer have access to the vehicle. S. went over and unlocked the padlock on the gate under the watchful gaze of a lone soldier, and got our things while we all waited, chewing our fingernails and trying to keep my kids occupied and unaware of what was happening. S. came back and handed us all our jackets and things, and i said, "oh no! i forgot to tell you that my passport and other i.d. was in the glove box, can you go back and get that?" and S. nodded and smiled and walked back over to unlock the gate again. the soldier didn't even look at him. we watched him walk across the parking lot. the sky was heavy and grey with clouds and it was starting to rain. i turned to say something to my mom, when there was a huge explosion that threw the soldier to the ground and rattled the windows of the library behind us, and when i looked over i saw that it was our rental car that had exploded, and in rush of agony i knew that there was no way S. had survived it, that he had probably triggered the car bomb by opening the glove box, that it had been me that had asked him to do it, and i looked at my mom again and there were tears in her eyes and disbelief and i just screamed at the top of my lungs and fell down on the ground and screamed and wept and screamed and screamed and everyone else was crying and screaming too and all i could think was, "how on earth can i go home and tell his family this?" and i woke up with my ears ringing.

i don't read Latin

this is my translation of Thomae Campiani's Elegiarum Libre
translated even though i don't read the language it was written in.

True, years add moonlight to your fruit, passing green days
Truth is also aesthetic and soft, Sybil, love.
Creating new infernos in pallid flowers
And seeing, tricky, "Your day, for sooth, erodes."
And voices "arid" and bland seep scarlet echoes;
Alluding voices mimick my nymph, so missed.
You tricked them, simulated suspect, forearmed
Struck dumb by your spectre, more cutting than Love.
It's tactile, tacit ills; taciturn spirits wrote:
This liquor, offensive, quarrelsome days.
Truthfully, I love Venus' parties where who bleeds, soothsays
Lighting insidious fires behind.
Nine takes its immortality, Love saves her special scents
To crudely fix man to his accurate pictures.
"Hey miser," you cry, "You musn't put Mama into labour;"
"Labour," the echoes reply, "To what rogue diva do you refer?
our Sybil?" "I am," you respond: seeping venom
molts ages of truth far from your nibblings:
some danger; and thanks, oh furnace that quickly and temporarily ignites,
I am middlin, no more a frigid poet with only hymns.



this is the original poem:
Thomae Campiani
Elegiarum Libre

Ver anni lunaeque fuit: pars verna diei;
verque erat aetatis dulce, Sybilla, tuae.
carpentem vernos niveo te pollice flores
ut vidi, dixi, "tu dea veris eris."
et vocalis "eris" blanditaque reddidit Eccho;
allusit votis mimica nympha meis.
vixdum nata mihi simulat suspiria, formam
quae dum specto tuam plurima cudit Amor.
si taceo, tacet illa; tacentem spiritus urit:
si loquor, offendor garrulitate deae.
veris amica Venus fetas quoque sanguine venas
incendit flammis insidiosa suis.
nec minus hac immitis Amor sua spicula nostro
pectore crudeli fixit acuta manu.
"heu miser," exclamo, "causa non laedor ab una;"
"una," Eccho resonat; "quam, rogo, diva, refers?
anne Sybillam?" "illam," respondit: sentio vatem
mox ego veridicam fatidicamque nimis:
nam perii, et verno quae coepit tempore flamma,
iam mihi non ullo frigore ponet hyems.


a fun exercise that you should try. pick a poem in a language you don't read. translate it anyway. post your results.

the icing on the tart

then i had a dream where i was at a party and simultaneously flirting with and making out with three different men, none of whom were my husband. one was even a friend (not a close one, someone i've barely seen in the last few years) and he was the one i was most excited about. one of the others was a 21 year old boy who was kind of preppy and had a goatee and was fat, and i would kiss him and he'd kiss back but then he'd apologize and act self-deprecating and say derrogatory stuff about his body. like, "i know i'm so huge it can't be fun to kiss me, but i swear i'll lose weight soon," and i was like, "don't even worry about it, baby," trying to reassure him but he was having none of it. and the third guy was this man i saw in a german movie last week called "enlightenment guarenteed" which was interesting and somewhat amusing but i didn't dig on some of the subtext to the film, but that's besides the point. as i was making out with this guy i was asking him questions about the movie, like, "now wait, did you play the role of ulwe? or were you gunther?" and he would say, "nein, nein, i vas ulwe!" he looked kind of like frasier. it was weird. i woke up feeling somewhat guilty over being such a tarty tart in my dreams, while leon slept next to me, blissfully unaware.