Dried Out

It is July 3, 2007. It is my brother's 32nd birthday. I just ate my weight in food. Call it a "Potluck", if you will, or a "Maelstrom of Every Ethnic Food That You Might Think Of"... Yes, that is what it was. As I plunge into the depths of beyond full, the kind of gluttony that puts pressure on my bones and I wonder if I might crack in half, I am thinking back to last night when I slept in a nest of pillows above my comforter as my air-conditioner hummed and my fan howled. I had a nightmare that my fictional family split in two. They each formed their own mafia family that hated the other with a venom so strong it seemed that they had all turned into cobras. I was the black sheep because I didn't want to join either band of hatred, so I ran. The farther I ran the closer they got to me and the hungrier and thirstier I became.

The summer heat hovered around my worn out body like flies. I got weaker and weaker and delirium set in. I lost my ability to see clearly. The world looked like soup and my throat went dry. I could hear people calling my name, but I didn't have the slightest idea that they were talking to me. I crawled out of my droopy body and sat on a shelf. I think I was in Target next to the candy bars.

They didn't notice me even though they were hunting me. They talked about kidnapping and eating yogurt and beef jerkey. They wore hats that covered their eyes. They couldn't believe they were standing in Target, so they weren't. They were outside at the bottom of steep cement stairs.

I looked at them trying desperately to focus. Sometimes I was invisible. Sometimes I wasn't.

I was dying. I was dying and there was no one to love me enough to save me and when I regained my will to live it was too late. It was too late because I was going to wake up and this sad state was going to end.