Sloth, Maybe?

I had a disturbing nightmare where I was back in my old neighborhood of Co-op City.   It was a dark gray overcast day.   I entered what is called a “Tower Building”:   One of three models of building in the development. I got aboard an elevator, and headed for the 34th floor (There is no 34th floor in a tower building in real life).   The elevator stopped at the 37th floor.   Any dweller in an apartment house knows the reflex of stepping out of an elevator, even if it’s the wrong floor.   That is precisely what I did. I ran into a large man with piercing dark eyes.   His muscular arm and hand grabbed me by the wrist.   He asked if I can help him with something. Some instinct told me that he had malicious intent.   I excused myself and stepped back on the elevator before it closed.   The large, dark eyed man followed me onto the elevator.   Then he started to ask personal questions.   Even in the dream, I found myself bodily cri...

I never had any personal experience with hard drugs, but nonetheless they have influenced my life. I remember a day when my mother left my estranged father and I on a line to see a movie.   When she left to park the car, Pop abruptly took me off the line with him and we wandered around the neighborhood going randomly from store to store.   As we walked along the street, I would hear him stifling a chuckle (or a sob?).   When my mother caught up with us, horrified at the thought that my father may have kidnapped me, she never left me alone with him again. When I told mom about my father’s inexplicable chuckling, my Mom said bluntly, “I think your father has a drug problem.” I had already been in classes at intermediate school where the cops told all the horror stories about drug abuse.   Through that lens, I saw my father as some kind of ghost, if not an outright monster.   I didn’t just feel he was no longer a part of the family.   I felt he was no longer o...

Unfinished Tales Gods, the sky is oppressively grey The leaves are gone All I see are bare grey branches Winter is coming?   Nay. Winter is here. I see flecks of dull yellow leaves over 1100 Warburton It isn’t much The mist lifts. The walls of 1100 are dull and beige I look across and focus on a window Inside, someone hunches over her sink She turns round Does she meet my gaze? I retreat from the window I see a figure appear   and quickly fade along the trail behind 1100 I don’t see much Large thick black books lay stacked upon the coffee table I have read each one Past the door to my office My bookshelves are stacked.   Space is meager There is no place to secure my bricks of pages Before me is a dead black screen on a dead black dresser whose shelves are sealed shut with moisture Another plastic slab made for games stands dusty, unsused. Knickknacks, tcotchkes for children Bring softness to the coffee table A bouquet of eternal plastic flowers sit in a ceramic pot. Ther...

  As you can see for the umpteenth time, I registered negative for Covid. I live in a sparsely populated area in Yonkers.   When Covid hit New York, guns blazing, I immediately ensconced myself in my apartment.   I counted my “blessings”… I work from home.   There’s no need for me to go in a densely populated area like the city. As I said above, I work in the middle of nowhere.   Odds are I won’t bump into someone who might be carrying the bug. I learned basic hygiene as far back as nursery school.   I probably learned it even earlier since mom bordered on germophobia in the presence of a newborn babe. Sure and I stocked up on masks and hand cleaner sprays, courtesy of New York State. We had a decent amount of toilet paper, so we wouldn’t wind up wiping our asses with issues of the New York Post. As an aside, what was the BIG DEAL about stockpiling on toilet paper?   There was an airborne virus that attacked the lungs, and we were obsessed with not hav...