I was naked, walking down a busy street in a city. I went into a beautiful restaurant. It was small, with large glass windows looking onto the sidewalk. The ceiling was high, and the tables were low to the ground. There were a few couches and mirrors, and on each table, tiny lamps. Candles were lit in the corners. Everything was slightly maroon.

I sat down at a full table in the back. My back was to a mirrored wall. I was meeting the people at the table for the first time, but somehow they knew someone I knew, and I was supposed to be there. It had been pre-arranged, but I had only accidentally found my way there.

Almost everyone at the table was either a climber or a cyclist. I was bored with the conversation, and I felt out of place. An advisee of mine from last year, in the form of a friend from college, was sitting next to me. He was the only person I liked talking to. He told me funny stories about riding his bike over mountains, and we laughed at everything. There were platters of food on the floor because the table was overflowing with wine glasses and ash trays and plates. I kept accidentally putting my foot in one of the platters, which contained some Hungarian dish featuring potatoes and paprika.

A very handsome Black man at the next table over kept looking at me, and I remembered I was naked. I hoped there would be music later and we could dance together.

I went into the alley behind the restaurant and ran into my high school boyfriend. We had sex in the alley. I whispered to him, "I know you're married, so this is sex only. I don't want to have to break up again." A man who worked in the kitchen was putting trash in the dumpster and watching. I asked him to please ignore us and go about his business. He was amused and tolerant and tried not to look.

I went to the mountains with one of the women from the restaurant. I was still naked. She was showing me how to climb upside down. I knew that I couldn't do it, so I tossed my backpack up into a cave and crawled up inside by myself.

I lay in bed asleep. The covers were fluffy and pulled over my head. My arms were above me, on the pillow. I felt something bite my wrist--it stung and burned. I leaped out of bed and crouched on the floor, looking at the mattress from eye-level. I saw a red cricket crawling on the covers. I watched it as it traveled up and down the rumples and wrinkles. I stood up and turned on the light. There were several fat, colorful, beautiful frogs squatting on my bed. I looked at the colors on their solid little chests--swirls of green, yellow, and orange.

A man was suspended upside down from a chandelier. He had on a helmet and black clothes. He hung there and taunted everyone below. I was standing along the wall with Mirta. Someone suggested that we shoot the man with a water gun. A baby stroller rolled into the room. It had a water gun mounted on the front. Mirta took the gun and told me we needed a tube for the water. I pulled out a hair from my head and handed it to her. She ran her fingernail down one side and blew into it. The top flared open. She shook it, and the bottom flared open, too. It became rigid and opaque. I wanted to take it to the river to fill it with water, but Mirta was busy threading it through the water gun. She ran it through several hooks along the barrel, then held it up and looked through the sight. I mounted it back on the baby stroller.

I lived with Mom and Dad in a large house in the country. A man and a woman who said they were my aunt and uncle came to visit. The woman had startlingly blond hair. I didn't trust them. I was asleep on the floor of the room I was sharing with the couple. The woman kissed my neck and woke me up. I was pissed. I started screaming that she had sexually assaulted me. I told Mom and Dad. They were oblivious. I screamed insults at her and the uncle. I yelled that her former husband had told too many stories and acted like a child. Everyone acted very calm. I raged at them all for hours. I wanted to hit them all.

A graduation ceremony for elementary school kids was about to start at the school up the hill from the house. We were all meant to attend. The house was full of children and unknown relatives, and everyone was trying to get ready. I was the last to get dressed, and I was still pissed. I got in the shower and saw that the drain was filled with blond hair and corn kernels. I scooped it out with my bare hand threw it in the sink. I turned on the water and stepped in. I noticed that my shampoo and conditioner were gone. I tied my hair into knots and got out of the shower. I put on a strange black off-the-shoulder dress and began searching for Mom and Dad. I found Mom and screamed that someone had taken my shampoo. She said if I couldn't find it, I should call 911 because it was likely that one of the children had eaten it. Everyone was so merry and unperturbed about everything, I was still in a rage.

I found a gorgeous, heavy, silver bracelet. I remembered that I had tried it on before, but it had fit awkwardly. This time it fit perfectly. As I was brushing my teeth, I felt something fall out of my mouth. It was my right eye tooth. I was a little worried that I would have a big gap where it had been, but when I looked in the mirror, I was relieved to see that a second row of teeth I didn't know I had was slowly moving forward to fill the space in. I decided to keep the tooth that had fallen out just in case. I placed it on the counter and noticed that it was getting bigger and bigger. It was twisted and jagged and several feet long with a very pointed end. I turned it over and saw that there were instructions on the back. They were arranged like bar codes in red, orange, and black, one on top of the other. I couldn't read what it said.

I was in prison, having been convicted of some crime related to the election. The prison was in a small town. My cell was large, but I was confined to the bed. The mattress was wide and long, and it was suspended from the ceiling. There was only a foot of space between the mattress and the ceiling, and the ceiling was covered with Christmas lights. I kept getting my feet tangled up in the wires.

Another prisoner joined me on the bed. Our weight was too much, and the bed split in two. We fell to the floor, tangled up in the Christmas lights.

I made my first escape attempt. I stole a Cadillac that belonged to one of the guards and drove down the street. I came to a trench. It went all the way across the road. It was a foot deep and a foot wide. I decided to drive over it. The Caddy got stuck and the tires exploded. The sheriff, who was a fat, Latino man in a cowboy hat, took me by the arm and walked me back to the prison.

I made my second escape attempt. I was in a convenience store in my orange prison suit. I was hunched down in the candy aisle. The sheriff and his wife were in the back of the store by the cooler. I was trying to stuff candy bars into my suit for my journey. I was pawing through different varieties, looking for Almond Joys. The store was filling up with people from the town, most of whom worked at the prison. I was afraid to get caught, but I was intent on finding an Almond Joy. The sheriff's wife saw me and laughed. I walked back to the prison, across a field. I asked myself how I would be able to get through the next six years.

Timmy and I went to Ireland. We were in a big city, and we walked down the street. We went into a very large elementary school. The halls were so wide that it was hard to see all the way across them, and the ceilings were so far above us that they looked like the sky. We let ourselves into locked classrooms and tried to stay out of people's way. Next we went into a mall. I was disappointed that all the stores were the same as in the states.

I wanted to go to the mountains, but I heard on the news that a prison inmate had escaped after skinning a guard alive. I felt unsafe outside.

I sat in my room and looked through the open door to the bathroom. I saw Mom floating in a baby pool. I stared at her for a long time trying to make the image go away, because I knew I didn't have a baby pool in my bathroom. I finally got up to investigate and the image changed to my bathtub. I was startled that I had seen something that wasn't there.

I was walking along the sidewalk in a big city. I saw a big, white animal on a leash in a doorway. I thought it was a dog. I bent down to pet it and realized that it was a gigantic rabbit. It was as big as a St Bernard, but cuddly and round and soft. I hugged its fat neck and squeezed its ears. The fat man holding its leash bent down and hugged the rabbit, too. He said, "If we skinned this guy, we could probably make two coats!"

I was a Japanese princess, and my friend and servant was a young man. He had to sleep on the floor next to my bed. One day he was rewarded and was allowed to sleep on the floor under the window so that he could see the stars.

He was in a choir. The members filed onto the risers for rehearsal each day in a particular order. The people who climbed up first had to bow to each of the rest of the choir as they arrived. The people who climbed up the risers last didn't bow to anyone. My friend resented this, and one day he decided not to bow. A young man noticed that he didn't bow, and turned around to nod to a woman behind him. She nodded back, which meant that she also noticed he hadn't bowed.

Ortho came to visit. He was a friend of my brother's from school. I hadn't met him yet. He wore a thick, black scarf, and was handsome and mean, but I trusted him anyway. I was self-conscious, but I soon got over it, and we laughed. We sat down to eat sushi, and I suggested we play the sushi game. My brother nodded and laughed. He picked through some rice to find eel. He put it in his mouth. I had to find eel now, too, and I couldn't eat anything else until I did. Next it was my turn to pick, but Ortho butted in. He dug through the rice on his plate with his chopsticks until a brown insect the size of my fist crawled across the table. I dutifully poked through my rice to find an insect, and I uncovered several. I ran to the bathroom to spit out the eel in my mouth, but it was an insect instead, partly chewed.

Our grandmother was there. She was Native American. She was very old, and everyone knew she was about to die. She was crawling around on the kitchen floor acting crazy. She said, "I died two days ago, but I haven't gone away yet." Ortho and my brother and I sat in the living room on a bed. Grandmother crawled onto the bed with us. She was a little scary and unpredictable. She pretended like she was a cat. I said, "If she is really dead, it would be bad luck to send her away. And if she's alive, it would be rude."

I went outside into the night. I ran down the street, bouncing high off of each step. I was having a wonderful time, springing through the air, leaping off of each sidewalk square. The stars were very white. I passed underneath a street lamp and noticed that a car was slowing down and turning around. I waited until the car was coming toward me, then dashed back in the other direction. But I couldn't run now. I was too slow. The man caught me and took me down the sidewalk and raped me.

When I got back to the house, I was naked and bruised. I was so sad and angry. My arms hung down at my side and I couldn't lift my head up because all my energy had gone. Ortho knew what had happened, and he told my brother to hug me. My brother didn't want to hug me because I was his sister and I was naked. But he did anyway, and I was so relieved. He took me upstairs, and I lay down on the floor. He looked at my hands and saw that there were splinters and pieces of rope. I begged him to preserve them as evidence, but he said they were too old, and as he pulled each splinter out, they evaporated. I remembered the rape. It wasn't me who had been raped, but my servant-friend. The rapist had pulled his brown dress over his head and pushed him down. My friend had black tattoos on his cheek, made to look like paintbrush strokes. I saw him in profile as he turned away to walk home.

A doctor came to the room and brought his son. His son crouched, sitting back like a squirrel. He had thick, black hair and a smug smile. He sat very still and looked straight ahead. I thought he was a dangerous badger. The doctor said his son was very ill, mentally ill, and could not be trusted. He pointed to the way he was sitting and said it was unnatural.

I went to a cafeteria and ran to the cashier. I was happy. The cafeteria was in the basement of the building in which I worked. I was there after lunchtime, but the cashier said they had saved me a slice of vegetarian cowboy pie. She said she would really appreciate it if I would try to remember to pay the correct person for my food.