Slinking through a sewer wishing I were leaner, sleeker but grateful to be wading through this scent-less scum, safe from my predator: an invisible heat-seeker, call 'em cheetah—too quick for me to beat on the vast savanna, so I went down, grabbed the outstretched hand of the woman who is leading me now, grabbed her hand from under a tipped-up manhole-cover that appeared in the ground: a corner of the sandstone rug upturned. I followed her down; I’m following her now, away from my fear of The Same—weaving narrowly, leisurely through several short corridors, our shoes caked with this thick crud. She leads me to a chute with a ladder below another portal. I’m above her now, climbing, I think by her order; I’m about to breach before her. Shoulder to the metal, press . . . thud. Peering up at me, stationary, she hopes I’ll cross over and become a man, whole. Now erect in a bright and manicured lawn; there is nothing and no one about but rather than be blissful, I twist and flit and gather by a glance that the rancid garden is inscribed by a bright, white fence. I will not become prey, pinned down. I call to her: “Clear out!” I’m-bracing myself, I jump—splash—and fall to my back in the underground, again, running from who I thought I’d have to become to be content with where I’d been.
This is the first of what I hope will be many micro-doses of dream-inspired prose-poetry. To read more, subscribe to The Intronaut.
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Away from Annotating