STRANGE DREAM
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I've been feeling strange, I guess you could call it sick. Sometimes when I look at a window the glass seems to move like water. Other times I feel that if I
go to sleep I will never wake up. I start to listen to my heart beat and it begins to feel unfamiliar. I worry that I am dying.
Strange thoughts came last night, I was again confined to the bed—somehow unable to straighten the room that seemed to slide downward into a lifetime of this
strange feeling. I opened my eyes and looked at the wood grain of the ceiling as I wondered when it would happen, that I would die. I thought about the Burnside
Bridge then, a place I used to always walk to when I was feeling out-of-sorts, when I lived on that side of town. That seemed to do it, yes, I'll walk to the
Burnside Bridge.
Only a short walk down the hill and I came upon a figment, a man huddled over in the cold night, holding a loose blanket to his chest and leaning over the
grass along the road. Of course I knew that I was meant to talk with him;
Do you have a flashlight?
No, but I can light something up for you.
Yeah, these are definitely not Psilocybin.
You're looking for mushrooms? (Laughs)
I studied Mycology.
I hand him a cigarette. The mushroom searcher stands in the road, his backpack on his hip, his face carved in deep grooves, all the while he is young, only 40.
You ever find magic mushrooms out here?
Here, no. Once I took a whole quart of cubensis, that was horrible. The whole ego death thing.
I had that once, I took salvia, it was crazy, I thought I had become a letter.
Oh salvia, yeah that stuff will mess you up. I took some once and died.
Yeah, exactly—like you think you're fucking up the whole universe—
No, not like that. I really died. I fell off the Burnside Bridge.
The mushroom searcher asked me if I believed in God. 'It's half and half' I said. I don't believe in Free Will.
I just do what matters to me now. I just go where I want. I screwed my whole life up, selling dope on Couch—getting shot up. But I value myself now, I like myself.
It's strange you said the Burnside Bridge, I'm headed there right now.
That's a long walk, you'll screw your feet up.
It's okay, I probably won't make it.
I have a bus pass if you want, the bus driver is a nice guy—thought I was sleeping on the streets just because I had this—I'm actually headed somewhere right now though.
It's okay, I'm alright to walk.
Take care of yourself. I hope to see you around.
I continued down the road, then, make it to the train yards, maybe that will be my ending? The machinery and the many colored boxcars are still and silent,
only the sterile lights above the yard seem to roam along the ground. The ground below the overpass is a great mud puddle, reflecting my face back to me. I keep going,
until the walk has gone on much too long. At some point, long too far, I begin walking back. My feet are killing me and I see raccoons playing in the tree on Divison.
I feverishly make my way up the last hill. The sky is becoming light beyond the buildings.
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