A Dream

Nothing is familiar. All of the places and people I know the names of do not look the same, though they have the same titles. I drown in black, dry ink, emitting from the press I operate. My lungs shrink, but they do not return their expansion. The beings beside me only stare, because I am doing something wrong. They judge my asphyxiation. Retreating to where I remember the bathroom being located, I am successful in my hunt and attempt to wash the ink out. When my dry skin laps the water up, I am instantly in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, slithering my way through the gridlock. There is an accident on the side of the street and my car, without my help, steers to it until I can see all the mangled, bloodied pounds of flesh at the bottom of an immense pile of sand. I cannot know whether anyone else has found this, so I swing my car door open, half circle my vehicle, and start climbing down the mound. The backgrounds of everything twist like the unfocused objects in a shroom trip and, upon looking up towards the top of the sand, I see a solid, few lines of people watching me. My nerve endings push me off balance. My mouth fills with miniscule pebbles and dust and again, I cannot inhale. I attempt only once to climb my way back up the sand hill, but when my feet sink, I lie down and sink with them.