Oasis

These are new canines, a special breed. "These are Christian dogs," says the prim lady escorting them with a dual leash. She seems very proud. They look like a version of hammerhead shark on four paws. Why they are called "Christian" isn't explained, but, then, nobody seems to have to justify that about humans either.

I commute to work on foot. I work in Watsonville, a village in which I indeed was employed through much of my waking, or at least daytime, gamma minus civil savant career, but this Watsonville is different.

There is a newish ranch-style brick-and-stucco dwelling in a neighborhood of plenty of others like it. They are landscaped on hilly terrain in one of four different floor plans. I stop by this particular unit to rest. No one knows why, not the owner of the home, not me, not anybody. I just go in and lay down and sleep if I want. I'm not related to anyone here. I don't even know them. It's just where I rest on the way to work. I don't even know who devised this rest stop plan.

The owner sometimes sits and chats jovially with me, like you would the one on the next seat in a bar. I don't have to knock when I enter. I just go in, stretch, lay down. It's about half way along my route.

I run a generator. It sits by my bedside at this strange oasis, and I use it for various appliances. It isn't really noisy for generators, but it is for a non-paying guest. I think maybe I'm overstepping my bounds, but, shoot, I'm doing that just being here. Maybe we all are.

Down the front is a trail over and through rocks for the brook sculpted into the front lawn. It is slippery through here, I'm thinking, and winding, and probably treacherous. Always in dreams I go where tracks are precarious.

Why do I stop here? I don't know. But I do.

Separation Anxiety

I am being fired. Okay, I walk away from one of those starched impersonal euphemism-laden sessions while the headcutter is amidsentence, then I pause outside the door. Hey, wait a minute! I'm being canned as a passenger of this rapid transit joint!

I was riding the train, which was proceeding suddenly over a narrowing track which became a roller coaster rail over sheer mountain passes. This is supposed to be a dull urban commute. I was surprised we made it across gaps thinner than our tread. Maybe that's why I'm not needed aboard no more. I was distracting and exhibited a lack of confidence with my screaming.

I am going to the office, or was. The office is now a store which has nothing to do with me. I worked there before when it was something else. I'm not sure why the present establishment allows me to keep my computer and desk in a small space in the midst of their business. Funny. My prior employment allows me to remain on the premises, through either default or indifference, although I no longer work there, or anywhere, and anyway my former firm is long gone from the neighborhood. And yet the public conveyence to and fro that jobsite has just fired me.

I see my computer is gone. Oh, yeah, Niki J has taken it home. No, wait, she says, look. She has redecorated; there is now an arras over the monitor. I think about how that must look. The workers all about may think I begrudge them a look at my monitor which is ensconced on their grounds without justification.

I am outside now, walking home. I think again about Scoob. Always I have dreams in which I've lost sight of Scoob. There are canines abounding all up and down the road, some he cavorts with. He's not among 'em. But I see him now, leaping in distant shadows. I know I'll find him, but it scares me still.

I wonder when Maya our new little diva pup will make her charming way into my dreams.