You amble outside of your in-laws’ house, the one they’ve had for thirty-four years of married life, the one you’ve driven to approximately 784 times if you count all the late-night stops when you dated your now-husband in high school. The air wavers like a mirage in a desert, and this clues you in that a dream has begun.

The chip salesman lurks in the dark corner of the superstore, handing out three and a half of the Product at a time.

Victim One: 56-year-old male Gary Beary. Balding, supervisor. Assaulted with a desk on the fourth floor of the insurance building on 10th street.

Panic Attack: WAKE UP THERE’S A BEAR

Me: what no there’s not

Panic Attack: BEARS EVERYWHERE

We point at a field of cows as we pass and say “Cows,” for as everyone knows, the bovine population has a deal with all travelers. 

My mind won’t stop once I lie supine. A thousand reminders prick through from my subconscious—how could I forget the trash full of my shed skin?

The woman held her four demons back, leashed according to the law. “No, no, I meant exercise, m’dear! My darlings are quite tame, thank you.”

Evelyn was on the way to her big meeting with the department heads, but the box of kittens on the side of the road read ‘take what you can’ and what was a middle-aged woman to do? Leave them? 

​Of course the freaking not.