January 14, 2010

Rachel's dream (v)

When she started to back out, her way back onto the street was blocked by a truck pulling a flatbed trailer on which sat a bulldozer. It loomed over her and her car to the point she sensed it could topple off and crush her and her car, but she was not frightened. Rather than turning right, back out onto the street, she turned left, further into the lot, thinking there was another way out.

As she drove she saw the lot was covered with survey stakes sticking out of the ground, and driving to avoid them was like driving an obstacle course. She reached the back of the lot and saw there was no way out because the lot was bordered by a high embankment which ran along a crudely constructed boardwalk that even when it was new must have been very quickly thrown together, and now, long neglected, was beat and battered and seemingly unsafe. Then she got out of my her and looked at the boardwalk, its sporadic boards were about shoulder height.

Rachel held a small match box in her hand which she held up to the boardwalk’s surface and released from a it a cockroach that grew to the size of her hand. It actually had the appearance of centipede and cockroach combined: hard shell, antenna, but with many legs and jointed body allowing it to twist left and right and maneuver quickly. She knew she had kept and cared for the bug since it was very small, had taken it many places unfamiliar to a bug, places bugs don’t go, or at least aren’t seen because they are places inhabited by people and a bug is not safe in those places.