Volume: 2

Dust Bowl

Dropping in on The Dump to help my successor recover ancient files.

About a week ago I dreamed of returning to S&D to resume my old job. In the dream the building was different -- being neither the old or new buildings. The office I was taking over in the dream was a mess, with dust everywhere, computer parts strewn all about and yet I experienced the same comfort level that I owned for many years working there -- that of complete control. I also experienced the same pathetic derision and contempt for Amy when I saw her crawling on the floor outside my office. The dream was real enough to cause a reality check upon waking. Yes, I still worked elsewhere.

The dream was prescient. I responded yesterday to a call from my successor, Vincent, to help find files on backups I had generated in 1992. He is a small guy, probably seven years younger than me, whose face is badly bent in various places as if he were an unsuccessful yet stubborn high school boxer. His demeanor follows the nerd stereotype: task at hand only, no big picture, surrounding chaos and short attention span.

On my way to see him that morning, I stopped for a red light. An Alpha Romeo, bright orange-red with light gray pin stripes, a convertible, pulled up next to me. I looked over to see a couple of ladies that I'm guessing were in their fifties. It was about fifty-two degrees out, a little foggy (basically full-blown winter) and just on the light side of darkness as the sun daily delayed its arrival. Both ladies talked simultaneously and I'm sure each understood the other even though I was equally sure the conversations were not related. They were bundled in heavy wool coats to fight the morning chill and they wore those see-through scarf nets tightly wrapped around their heads, pinning their artificially curly hair to their scalps.

At the signal, still red, I constructed in my mind what I wanted to see happen to those ladies. This was where my umbilical cord to reality was severed and I began free-floating in the surrealistic goo of imagination, sort of like being suspended in the middle of a swimming pool full of lime Jello.