Karate Blossoms

“Mary Gold! And in the palm of kings. From a goddess, behold-“ he preached “A lost Anunnaki.”

From afar, the basal of the hall, it was heard. The chant of unknown wonderment. All words, names and juju reciting that was neither unknown or new to me. In a dialect that came across clear intermediately. He ended with:

“And there!-“ The uniform neck breaking ganders shot me out of my unawareness. Until this time I was just a passenger on this ride to ritual. I pant, eyes wide, moistened by sweat, muscles clenched. Adrenaline fueled. This was the 3rd or 4th dream gone rogue. And it always starts and ends the same. With me and a massive flock of them. Whoever they are.

“Dreams can be hints, memories, renditions, philosophy, randomness. I see nightmares as just unknown chaos.“ My therapist has a way with downplaying everything. Making it as simple as possible for him to understand it. It’s like he makes an immediate conclusion and pushes on. He’s good at stretching out time.

It’s like that one time I sprang for an editor for my “Therapy Book.” A project I was advised to create to aid my “Recovery.” The man had no creative bone or dawning. Not even if someone were to coach him in the arts of arts will their efforts suffice. My doctor seems the same way when it comes to his profession.

“Are you under any additional stress? Are you drinking too much coffee again?”

What the hell do you think, doc? He piled questions, talking to himself mostly.

“What is your mind trying to figure out? Where do you continue to go? Why can’t you go more into the dream? You know, like past that point of awakening? It’s not like you’re dropping back into reality on the spurt of being surprised by the chanting. You stick around to actually remember the awareness of the lucidity. You spent more time there than you’re realizing.”

A ripple of goose skin ran the length of my spine. If this guy wasn’t a family friend then I wouldn’t be here for his “snack” break every day. This eliminated the need to dig myself in a deeper hole. Financially. And that’s not the point but here, that sentence, he may have a point. Maybe all of this bull led to that one needle in his soggy haystack.

“You want me to actually try to re dream that dream and let it just- happen?”

He shrugged, with an inquisitive grimace and a tilted head.

“Why not? You don’t seem to wake to a fright, fall, impact, or anything. You wake you up. It’s like when film cuts out but you’re the film handler.” All true statements “so,” he works himself up to the end simply “why not just keep going?”

Our meeting was sabotaged and saved by the clock striking 11.

“Same time tomorrow!” was his fading words as the door slowly shut behind me.

I walked through bushels of crowds, avoiding salesmen and woman, denying taxis and such. Passed the hotdog man a $5 on the corner of 3rd and he gave me a dog covered lukewarm yellow mustard, chips and a random soda grab. Ginger ale this time. All was consumed and discarded before I arrived at the mammoth sized white marble staircase that introduced the public library to this avenue. A great huff began my climb.

This entire time, since the minute I woke up, I felt as though I was more out of control than normal. But, in this way, this feeling, it didn’t bring anything troubling with it. I wasn’t an outward paranoid person. Not even socially anxious, repressive of fascinations or skeptically curious. I even strode into the café next door I sweep past every morning. Scanning its interior, admiring the subtle people of all colors, shapes and sizes interweave. Flowing in, out, between the usually crowded floor and even bumping into each other. Which resulted in spilled coffee. This little morning fault, the potential day stain, it stopped nothing. They assisted each other in taking the blame and offering a solution and/or repayment.

I was gently nudged forward in line. Greeted by a genuine barista, my wake-up call was concocted with precision and intensity. A grin between us, a bid to have a good day, started a new projection for myself. It was time to do this whole thing differently.

The library stunk of silence, dust heated by intruding light and a faint smell of binder glue. They repaired valuable pieces of literature in a ceiling suspended room that overlooked the stadium like building. Two of the four floors had a winding of shelves that held an infinite source of literature . The first level was Western World dedicated, the second, Eastern. The third floor held a collection of world entertainment and education. The fourth, the employee only floor, or, the black room, held the art of our humanity. Written and painted.

“Can I help you ma’am?” A lanky worker stood confused, frozen right next to me. I think he was trying to figure out why I blankly looked at the open circular floor. You see, even though there was a giant circular gap between levels, the ground within the gap was meter thick crystal. And I had a skirt on.

“Yeah?” I stretched the word.

“With?”

“Oh!” I snapped back into my reasoning to be here. “I need two books from each floor on the messages behind dreams.” His eyes widened. “The top rated, of course, for the ease of understanding, universality- you know, the works.” I nodded with a forced, awkward smile. “I’ll be over there.” I pointed to the only empty table set across the room near the back maintenance closet. A single seater that sat against the wall beyond the circling shelves. He knew what I meant, you cant see the seat from this vantage point but he knew.

48 minutes later a traveling of feet stopped right before the open corner of this small round table. A crashing of five thick books stacked like pancakes.

“The bottom book, read that last.” He quickly disappeared beyond the wrapping shelves.

I destroyed the first four books. In an odd stream of continuous context scanning, sticky noting important chapters and relevance, dog earing the most important pages. The problem came when I filled a brand-new notebook. Every now and then I would use the restroom. Peeking out of the windows of the curved wall. The sunset intensifying the hallway with a strong orange the last time I left the desk. I guess my whole day was spent figuring out a single problem. And like a ripple in a wave that won’t go away, I rapped my fingers on the cover of this 5th book, ready to absorb. Its covering dusty, binding tight, library stamp missing, I opened it carefully.

“El cambiador de forma?“ I dipped into my open-source translator. I read it again in English. “The Shape Changer?” I placed the book to my direct attention, lifting it to stand, a thin book stuck to its bottom. “The Book of the Predictable Man? Is this a joke-” I didn’t mean to say that out loud. I looked around for that lanky kid. I even ventured, walking the circulating floor, no luck.

“Okay.” I sat back in the chair talking to myself “Let’s see.”

From the inscribing behind the leather face, which read, “For the Dreamers.” this falling within my stomach, like a complete body untangling, chased me straight into an unconscious read.

I’m not sure when I fell asleep. But considering this was an 18-hour library, I panicked when my shoulder was lightly tugged.

“I’m sorry but its midnight.” She quickly said as I ran my sleeve across my drool soaked lips. “We didn’t want to-“

“No no. You’re good. I should-” I stood up quickly. The book in front of me gone. I was throwing my own personal stuff back into my bag. She grabbed the stack in the corner of the table. One by one I watched her collect them. “There was another book.” She looked at me odd.

“What other book? You only checked out four. Would you like to open a rental? I see you have these marked up.”

I clenched my teeth, squished my eyebrows and wondered visually. There was nothing exchanged after I nodded.

I took the same way home. Up the avenue, turn at 3rd, pass Ken’s office and across the street. Basically diagonal, my apartment on the top floor of a grocery store, I rushed to return to safety in this dark of night.

To get in I had to unlock the back door, face the residual cold breeze of the back freezer that seeps into the ascending, old wooden staircase. I reached the top, pinned between the twist of the last step, a flimsy wooden door and dull handle. It shook when you unlocked it so you would have to hold the handle tightly late nights. The neighbor’s downstairs have ears of hawks.

Tip toeing in my own place I slipped to a kneeing on something hogging the kitchen floor. My heavy backpack pounding the ground. I reached, swearing lightly in pain, flicking the light on, dropping my keys on the ground when I noticed- it’s the book. The one from the library. Opened to the last chapter. The one I blacked out on. Right before I was awoken by a soft shaking. But right before, following the part of my dreams where the sounds of necks twisting out of socket, bone against bone, smoke pours from my nostrils, my body ready to leap, manifests a dimension of lucidity that's unexplainable. That brought me to awareness before reality.

“The Raging Bull.” I whispered out loud.

The title taunted me all night.

Fin.

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-Jahvon