Bad

[From Janet's Dream Journal and part of the Covers series]

Jackson Pollack was staring at me, wearing my orange striped blouse and looking at me and acting the little shit, like to dare me to tell him to give it back. He didn't talk, just looked mournful, as if he wanted something from me. But you're wearing my shirt, I thought, what more do you want?

I didn't realize who he was until I woke up in that neighborhood that dreams and consciousness co-inhabit.

A lost man.

That is was my first thought as I hovered over the experience I was still mired in, though I felt far enough from him to be safe.

The dream came back to me in episodes that replayed in reverse chronology:

I panicked, thinking I'd missed his show, missed being there with him, missed him. I realized that I had in fact missed the show but he hadn't told me about it and he hadn't told me about the show because he had died like twenty years before I was born.

I was in a museum all alone. It was incredibly bright, everywhere I walked, even in the rooms with no windows. The brightness didn't seem natural and that was what had my attention, not the paintings and other art work. I walked from room to room not understanding why it was so bright.

Sophia was calling me on the phone—I could hear her voice coming from the phone calling my name but when I picked up the receiver, it was just the dial tone. The room went blue when I realized I'd only imagined that Sophia was calling, all the furniture and the walls turned like a black and white photograph but it was blue.

In the grocery store I watched a pyramid of mangoes tumble and suddenly all the fruits in the produce section were falling in an avalanche of color. My feet were glued to the floor I could not move and the apples and limes and all the other round fruits rolled all around me and every time I thought I would be buried the pile would fall again, so it was a constant stream of fruit towering up and falling down around me. I wondered why I couldn't be buried in bananas, which I like better and would smash if I walked on them.

Everybody wants to save the world.

By the time I remembered that line I couldn't remember who in my dream had said it, if I had or if someone had said it to me and I was awake enough to know that those were the wrong lyrics anyway because they are still playing on the clock radio alarm and the words are Everybody wants to rule the world and right now that seems like such an overwhelming project to take on and why do I want to pick up the phone just in case Sophia is calling me?