dream.20061219: the jacket
¶ by Rob FrieselAn almost high school hallway but it never ends, doorways on all sides. I’m too old for these childish games but just the same, I’m trying to fit in with this half-dozen or so of The Cool Kids. We’re all laughing and I think we’re laughing together but they’re laughing at me. Like I’m The Slow Kid, the one that everyone picks on. You fit in but only to have the jokes be at your expense. They get harsher as they get more subtle. Until they’ve taken your jacket. (My jacket.) And we chase them down the hall until I can catch the one kid (D.C.?) who has stumbled and nearly tripped. He tripped when they tossed him the jacket. Now I grapple with him and get him into a headlock and wrestle him all that distance back down the hallway to my room. And I open the door to discover that he (D.C.?) is already there (in my room) waiting for me, relieved that I’d managed to capture him and return the jacket to myself. He explains that he’s been on my side all along. But then who do I have in a headlock? I thrust the jacket aside to see that I’ve got myself in a headlock.
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