post.apoca

It was hot and humid and unbearably sunny*; strong southern weather. I** saw him walking down the road. He was wearing a dusty brown sun hat with a wide floppy brim and denim coveralls. He had short brown-red hair and a short beard. There was dirt smudged on his face and arms. He didn't have a shirt or shoes. He was pushing a rusty shopping cart filled with all sorts of dirty fabrics and god-knows-what. I was wary; you always had to be wary of who you met those days.

I invited him over. He parked his cart on the peeling sky blue painted porch of my farmhouse, sat next to me on the bench and we ate. He only had two fingers on his right hand -- his middle and index finger. He put them together and used them like a spoon to scrape out chunks of canned peaches in syrup from a dirty can with no label and a jaggedly-cut lid. He offered me the last suck of juice from the can, with one small square piece of peach left in it. I let him scrape his fingers around the sides of the can of my own lunch -- one can of tomato paste.

He followed me inside the house. My house had a huge, fairly modern kitchen. I went rifling through the refrigerator in search of something to offer my guest. "I'm sorry," I said. The electricity has been out for a long time so most everything is spoiled. I haven't had the heart to throw it all out." I pushed past half-open packages of hot dogs and old cheese. There was one white plastic package -- it felt like half a pair in syrup -- that I held for a moment, but then I put it back. I thought mom might be angry if the man and I ate it. I stood up, shut the door to the fridge, and turned around. The strange man had been busy at the stove. He had cooked a giant omelette and a plate of pancakes. "We had eggs?" I thought to myself, surprised.

Then the electricity flickered once. It flickered again, and we heard a huge rumbling noise throughout the house. "Oh, that's just the air conditioner turning on." I said. It took a minute for the implications of this to hit me. Electricity! I ran to the huge stainless steel unit on the wall and franticly pressed the buttons. I pressed a large round power button. The unit had a giant tv attached to it, and it roared to life, showing only static. I pressed the button again, and suddenly we were being shown a professional football game.

"WHAT??" the man roared, enraged. He pushed me back against the refridgerator. "You didn't tell me what it was still like out there!"*** He put his hands around my throat. He was wide-eyed and savage. I was confused. I looked at the screen; most of the stadium was empty, but there were some people there, in the stands, and the game was happening. "I didn't know!" I cried. I managed to escape his grasp and ran out the door of the house. I ran alongside the porch and started into the pine forest behind it.

"You'll be back," shouted the man. "You'll come in through the window or something. You have to. And I'll be here waiting." I knew he was right.

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NOTES ABOUT THIS DREAM

* This is remarkable in that I very rarely have dreams in which there is strong sunlight. This might be because this was a midday nap dream and therefore my nap environment was sunnier than my usual sleep environment.

** The "I" in my dream was me, but it was not me in my actual, physical body. The "I" I identified with in the dream was a young caucasian male, late 20's to early 30's, living in the country. There's no "evidence" in the dream to prove this other than my own strong feeling that that is who I was.

***something to this effect. what he was referring to was the relatively 'normalcy' of people going to see a professional sporting event while we were essentially living as if society itself had completely crumbled

........

This weekend I went to the Boryeong Mud Festival. Korea has a "spring break," and this is it. It's the only time and place I have been since I moved here almost a year ago where so much flesh was so willingly shown without so much as a single eyelash batted. There was mud, there was the beach, there was drinking (oh was there drinking).

I met up with some people -- good people -- who live further south, in Changwon. I had a (relatively) good time. I think what outings like this just do for me, though, is reinforce the knowledge that I am, in fact, different. I can't nor do I want to go all night every night. It's hard for me to make light conversation out of nothing; I kept listening to what people were saying and found myself being able to predict what would come next. Everything -- the people, the words, what they did -- seemed contrived and self-aware. I had the uncanny feeling that I was surrounded by puppets, mere shadows acting out the ways in which they felt they were supposed to act. But I also felt like a shadow; my body felt loose and empty, as if everything that was "me" had been wrapped up tightly in a tiny black ball in my chest. I was seeing but not seeing.

I am ashamed at the disdain I have for my fellow human beings. But I'm also ashamed of their actions, though I feel I am no better. I pose and posture because it's easy. What I want, who I am -- I don't know these things, how to be these things, and I'm plagued by it. It goes away, sometimes, for twenty minutes or an hour or maybe several hours, but inevitably the feeling comes back -- that everything you say and do, and everything those around you say and do, is a lie, and we are all face-down choking in a puddle of our own mediocrity, gasping for air but too lazy to lift our heads.

meetings

It's close to one o clock but I cannot sleep. Tomorrow is the last day of the semester. I have no classes, but I will have to attend a "teacher's meeting." In Korea, a "meeting" means meeting but not a meeting. We will be meeting, but no business will be discussed. We will gather around tables, sit on floors and cook pieces of pork fat over hot grills until the grease pops and slaps our wrists and faces. Mr. Chae, the head teacher whose long wrinkled face is like a mix of Bogart and my grandfather, will call me his Audrey Hepburn and pour tasteless beer for me. I will drink and pass him the cup. I will fill it with two hands, and he will sip, the oil imprints of my lips opaque against the glass.

I will look at the faces around me. Some are kind, most smile when I smile, but still remain as politely mysterious as when I (or they) arrived. I have to always be careful what I say. Their English surprises me. It creeps up slowly and unexpected like an errant crocus in January; a surprise, but always a delight. I will sit next to the music teacher and crack jokes in simple Korean to keep those at my table laughing. Then, when everyone has been drinking, I will fall silent, as no longer does anyone have the knowledge or patience to whisper translations in a foreign tongue. I will eat, and smile, and wait until it is time to go home. My school is one of commuters and mothers, and we never stay past eight.

epiphany

when I was walking home from school yesterday, I passed the same tumble-down wall covered in bushes I always pass, and there was nothing noticeably different about the day or my surroundings, but for the first time in my life I thought about the possibility of my self-induced non-existence and I felt my mind violently buck against it. I'm not sure what this means, or what is causing me to change, or how to keep changing, or how to stop from going back.