adapted from Journal 16, p 41-44. Monday 1 May 2017.

It was a good and warm night. The stars were out and the air was warm. The party was outside the house of a notable realtor, she had come out on her own against a great schism of realtors, but she had enough pull and influence to invite local celebrities and tastemakers to her house as a balm to her career. As a Realtor, of course, her house was a grand mansion, but we were allowed only in the front yard. It was a vast fenced yard perched on the top of a high hill, and all around a steep cliff separated her from the rest of the world. 

Around us, growing from her dirt-patch yard, were her crop of houses. There were glittering lights strung between them, and the largest of the many little single-family homes was only three-quarter sized, not fully grown, and when I looked in through the perfect but minuscule window I saw it was fully furnished with relatively sized doll house furniture.

All my dreams now take place in this shifting and twisting night realm of violently tilted cobblestone streets, like Sienna late at night. Gravity is loosened and I feel lighter than normal, but the ground slides away below me or proves a difficult and breathy climb back up. At the crossroads on the way there, lit infrequently by antique oil lamps, I ran into Cosmo. Cosmo was as beautiful as ever, their white shock of hair flying around their head like an anime halo, and they did not hate me anymore. I felt a great love in my heart, how I left Cosmo was one of my great regrets, but they had not gotten any more interesting since I last saw them so I made an excuse and climbed the narrow path up to the Realtors property, where I had been invited.

Back in the present I decided to jump over some small cars. My gleeful bounds as if I were on the moon carried me high. I leapt from small car sinking into the earth to larger car and, taken by hubris, I decided to jump onto this white limousine SUV. As I landed on the roof I saw through the ceiling-window a mess of steam and women’s bodies, nothing very specific but an overwhelming impression of stifling sexuality pressing up against the window. Elbows and faces were smushed against the glass I was looking through, like a sweaty overcrowded elevator of sex. With a loud slam of the door Jesse, a beautiful and intense man, jumped out of the limo-SUV and started yelling at me “I was on a business call!” he shouted. Admonished and frightened I climbed down to talk to him. I saw through the windows that the SUV was empty. The powerful sexual experience I had glimpsed was only happening in the ceiling-window, the body of the car was empty now that Jesse was yelling at me. I was trapped, and he was very muscular. He was one of those people that never wears a shirt, and I was quite impressed, although I wished that he would stop shouting. I became very meek and apologetic, trying to escape because I don’t think he would let me get into the SUV with him. 

The Realtor’s business was growing houses on her mountain peak property and selling them. She would farm them like pumpkin or watermelon, but there were no visible stalks or other natural growths, in fact the ground was almost barren. The houses just grew up from the earth in uneven rows, looking as if a giant’s collection of dollhouses had dropped from the sky. This put her at a disadvantage to squatters and other forms of residence-theft. There were dozens of houses, some perfect but most quite small. The Realtor had hired a beautiful girl, who I had never seen before but whom I loved once I saw her, to investigate crimes on the property. As soon as I saw her I got a strong sense of capability and purpose. As Jesse was expressing how deeply disappointed he was with me I saw, past him, the Girl walk casually over to the fenced edge of the property, make a long rope quickly out a number of belts, tie the belt-rope to the fence, and swing down the cliff into the darkness and I was the girl and I saw through her eyes a house growing from the side of the cliff. 

It was a low house, longer than it was tall, growing out of the side of the sheer dirt cliff. Buried as deep as it was it could not push the earth above out of the way and so it had grown side-ways, to reach freedom in an unusual way. As time goes on, logically, it will eventually grow free and tumble down to the valley far below, so it is a doomed and tragic house. It was one story tall, and expensive-looking, all beams and glass, like one might find in California. I (The Girl) swing down my rope, carefully but quickly, and land on the little porch outside the door. The house is not fully grown yet, so everything is far too small. I open the door, anxiously anticipating what I find. It was all so clear. I can barely fit through the tiny door but the inside of the house is fully furnished, with a modern stainless steel kitchen to the right, and a large sunken living room on the left with panoramic windows opening onto the dark night. I look around, stuck a little in the door, and I can see down the hallway deeper into the hill. At the end is a bedroom that is too small for the full-sized bed that has been jammed into it. I can just make out the person who has been living here, who I had been sent to expel. Comfortably lounging on that bed is Marty McFly’s daughter from the second Back the Future movie. My reports of this experience conflict. Now I think she was inviting me in, but I reportedly woke up and described all this in the moment, and in the moment I described her as “Defending” the house. In any case I look down, almost free of the door, and I can see two knives from the nearby kitchen: One ceramic chef’s knife and one stainless steel paring knife. I reach down and grip the smaller steel one, and everything goes white.