by Kelan Putnam

Created on: November 11, 2008

THE DAY BEGINS

The room is hot.
Each night before bed we turn down the heat. No, I am hot; burning hot. Terrified after a dream. My dreams are always vivid.

It's the end that I remember. I am lost, wandering in and out of expensive restaurants. One of the waitresses is outside having a smoke and she directs me to a prison nearby. She will give me money if I get tickets for children to tour the prison.

Obedient and grateful for the hand-out, I follow her directions and return with the tickets. The prison looks like a post office.

Desperately trying to remember someone, anyone, who lives in Los Angeles, I wander streets dressed in warm, designer clothing. It is never that cold there; I never wear designer clothing when I am awake. That much I am sure of. A city I have never been to before, and speaks of all the values I do not understand or care about.

Then I remember Marie. Maybe she still lives here. I use the money the waitress gave me. A lot of quarters. It was so long ago that anyone used a pay phone, when it cost a quarter.
I am trying to get her number, getting cut off from Information, the line behind me is growing and people are angry at the wait.

Finally get her phone number and call. We are both amazed to be in contact again. She hasn't heard from me since we were trying to arrange a visit and everything between us went sour. I haven't spoken to her in three, four years. I can't remember.

Forced to beg her forgiveness, for whatever it was that ended our friendship, asking her to come and get me because I have no place to go. Please, please, I say. My voice is getting softer, less desperate. I have leaned on strangers before and can do so again.
I am reminded of why everything between us broke down.

I am awake but don't know it. I am saying, "Marie, did you hang up on me? Are you there?" The line is dead. I reach out into the darkness and my husband is beside me, we are in bed and he is telling me I had a dream, and I am safe. No, I am not safe.

The hot flash kicks in for a very long time. The room is freezing. I am on fire. Finally, it stops but I am soaking wet. I creep from the bed in the black room and consider what it is like to be blind. As fear falls and surrounds me I find my glasses, my socks, my slippers, my flannel pajamas.
I hear cats keening outside.

After disappearing from the bedroom, going gingerly downstairs in the dark, I get dressed, turn on lights, fill the tea kettle, comfort Theo, our cat, who is desperate for my attention. I take out the garbage,

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