three nightmares

Today I worked at the Vedanta bookstore for the first time. C showed me how to duplicate audio tapes. I learned how to write up a purchase and use the credit card machine. I learned how the books are arranged and how to close up. I like it there, and it smells really good. I would like to be there alone and just stare out the window for a while. As it was, my friend D was there with me, and she talked on the phone much of the time. It's kind of fun to listen to someone talking on the phone, but I would rather look out the window quietly.

Anyway, maybe I'll start volunteering there regularly. I was just covering a shift.

This morning I woke up from a nightmare for the third morning in a row.

Last night's: Erik and I and someone else are imprisoned. We live in a cold, blue prison cell. But something happens with a guard, and Erik is going to be removed to another prison, a very bad one like a concentration camp. A guard could come at any time to take him away. Finally a guard does come. I wish he would have mercy on us and decide not to take Erik away. But he doesn't. Erik has to wear special clothes. The guard leads him away, and I know I will probably never see him again. I am filled with the most painful anguish a person can feel.

Night before: Books begin to malfunction. Then machines no longer work. Then houses begin to rot from inside the walls. Then crops will no longer grow. Strange colorful birds come to pick at the empty fields. Everyone is going hungry, and people try to cross the border into Mexico to look for food. Some days the border is open, some days closed. Everyone is on foot (since machine don't work anymore) and roving in bands. The river is swollen and has erratic waves that can carry someone away at any moment. Culture is collapsing. We have nothing to eat, no where to live, and nothing to read.

Night before that: A fight, and someone's eyeball is gouged out. She puts it in her mouth. (Other bad parts I will not recount.)

These are common themes: post-apocalyptic and bad prison dreams.

Tonight Erik's at a Buddhist sit and talk, not at his usual Soto Zen place but an inter-Buddhist place. Some Vipassana dude is talking. He should be home any minute now.