Dreams, a commentary (No. 1)

Dreams, eh?  They’re just stories, right?  Stories your own brain tries to tell you while you aren’t paying attention.  They don’t really mean anything.  That’s what you’ve got to tell yourself.  Over and over, you’ve got to tell yourself that, that they don’t mean anything.  You have to.  Because if they did actually mean something.  If those stories your own mind was trying to tell you while you weren’t paying attention, if *those* stories meant anything, anything at all….

A Portait of the Artist in his Prime

He overflowed with nervous energy.

He couldn’t keep his hands still.  He tried to control their motion by washing dishes, darning socks; he ran his hands through his hair, or stroked one of the thirty cats that roamed his abode.  But he couldn’t focus and so nothing was ever finished.

His legs jiggled when he sat; when he stood he danced an unending jig.  The motion interfered with his every task, and he wore a perpetually put-upon air as if mildly disgusted with himself.  He only slept when completely exhausted by uninterrupted days of restless wakefulness.