Sleep paralysis. Lying on my back in the bed. Alarmed. Hearing my dog on one side of the bed, then the other, just the small noises that a small dog makes, his collar's faint clinking. Open my eyes. Am I dreaming. Is this a false awakening. Then I see my man's form to the right of me. He's standing. Nude, indistinct. That field of fear still holds me. Some impulse towards things must be normal prompts me to say, Hi baby. I say it, and as soon as I give that greeting, he slides forward. It takes less than a second. He slides forward. He inclines over me. His face is next to my face. His face slips into mine. His chest into mine. His body into mine. It takes less than a second. His body or spirit is now inside me. How will this narrative go. He's dreaming of me. Or, his spirit is possessing me. Or, in the night he wants to be with me.



Junior the dragonfly on my hand. He's a small, tan bug, with unremarkable wings, but in the shape of a dragonfly. I toss a cube of bread on the floor and he dives on it. A dream companion comes in. Gentle, elliptic conversation about the level of interaction one has with a friendly insect. But to start with, need to clear up my companion's mistaken assumption. He asks if Junior is this bug, opening a box the size of a shoebox on a low shelf or table. The bug is a handsome one, an inch and a half long, with striking black shell. But this racy looking black bug is not built for aerodynamic grace like Junior. I manage to find the easily camouflaged Junior near the bread on the floor and point him out.



Which apartment we'll stay in, since we're here for the short term. The tour of the communal apartment building begins with the first floor, with its expanse of solid, old wooden tables. There must be an industrial sized kitchen where many people spend hours every day on the other side of the first floor. I'm given the explanation of the community cooking that happens for every meal. They both seek whole ingredients, such as whole wheat flour to make bread, and also must take whatever is given, like a food bank, they spurn nothing, not even processed and packaged foods. For every meal, they work together so that everyone can have a plate of food.

But we're staying in this apartment. Baroquely packed with lush indoor plants and treasures. Must remember how beautiful it is to have the space filled with greenery and found objects. Walking through a downstairs lobby, more of a chamber, really. This is the second time I've seen poodle-like dogs, shaggy, tan, on the small side, in this interior. They're hanging out like they belong here. I'll see another pair of them a little later. There behind those plants and bench, that really is a rectangular, pale yellow stone basin filled with clear, still water, the length of a tall person, even. What an assortment of decorating and functional elements. How long this must have been accumulating, how long the residents must have been here.

Walking up the stairs to the apartment where we're staying. An exterior, concrete stairway, dotted with planters. Along come some other people, residents of the building. Their presence makes me nervous, not wanting to reveal that I'm not truly sure of which floor I belong on. So I go all the way up to the roof garden. One woman gives me the eyebrows concerned aside about how the area is so risky and low-rent. Puzzling, since I've seen large, character-filled living spaces, with many plants and even antiques in common areas. From here I can look down and see the common dining area tables of the building where the poor people live. Some of the tables spill outside. They not only help each other to be fed, they also eat their meals in an open air setting. How can she feel threatened by being near such a cooperative group? I don't see any evidence of crime or neglect anywhere.



In the antique apparatus filled room, we're acting out the capture and evil genius murder. I'm in the role of the captive in distress. The genius, with his flyaway hair and thick glasses, tells me to sit here, put my hands into these manacles. He fires a cannon of dissolving rays at me. He nearly misses, twice. It's like that in the script. He's menacing, yet bumbling. But things build, as they tend to in these scenarios. And ultimately, after he's ordered me to a cramped seat lodged between two big cabinets or trunks, he's firing the really powerful cannon at me. It looks like it's aimed straight at me, this time. And when I see the smoke wisping off of it, and he makes the striking motion with his arm, I can't help it. I cringe and close my eyes. Darn, I missed it. I ask him if he'll rewind. He looks a little discomfited, but agrees. I get settled again in my captive perch. Now a few people come in to watch. I'm thinking I look pretty good. These images might start a surprise acting career for me.


~~~~~~~~~

Poking around the current Wikipedia entry on sleep paralysis, I found this passage. I love the idea of the conflict between the earthly spouse and a spiritual spouse. Such conflicts must always be occurring, in the long tale of integration between what we marry on earth and what we marry in spirit. Perhaps I have eaten my spiritual spouse, in my dream of him dissolving into me. Perhaps he nourishes me and gives me strength.

"Ogun Oru is a traditional explanation for nocturnal disturbances among the Yoruba of Southwest Nigeria; ogun oru (nocturnal warfare) involves an acute night-time disturbance that is culturally attributed to demonic infiltration of the body and psyche during dreaming. Ogun oru is characterized by its occurrence, a female preponderance, the perception of an underlying feud between the sufferer's earthly spouse and a 'spiritual' spouse, and the event of bewitchment through eating while dreaming. The condition is believed to be treatable through Christian prayers or elaborate traditional rituals designed to exorcise the imbibed demonic elements.[19]"

1.  Aina OF, Famuyiwa OO (2007). "Ogun Oru: a traditional explanation for nocturnal neuropsychiatric disturbances among the Yoruba of Southwest Nigeria". Transcultural psychiatry 44 (1): 44–54. doi:10.1177/1363461507074968. PMID 17379609.

They shouldn't even ask me to come out on a mission. It's during my scheduled off-duty time. Legs in front of a sofa ending in high heeled pumps. This negotiation over my going on the assignment is simply protocol. They ask and I go. My protest is the merest facesaving.

At the assignment. This woman and her daughter, what possible value can they have in the world of espionage? The mother's picked out a film she wants them to go see. This listing, this theater, this time. I shake open the newspaper pages, looking for times and venues. Here are a few showtimes and theaters where it's playing. Can't find the showing she pointed out. Oh, that showing was too far away, anyway, on the other side of the Beltway. There's some arranging to do to get them to one of these. But with me doing the arranging, it will be easier than it would be for these two, who are intimidated by the details of moving in the world, lost, impotent.

The mother is briefly a shadow of la bonita, who is a shadow of my mother.

Here out walking down the sidewalk on a quiet street with Mono and his friend, a slender Asian man in his thirties. We're all wearing sneakers and comfortable, baggy pants. This is hanging out. I'm ambling slightly behind them. I don't walk by Mono's side like I used to, because we're not together anymore. The shared mood is careless and relaxed, everything's okay. His silence is now without weight.

We pause in our walk next to a curbside planting strip. Bare earth and several varieties of clover. Mono's friend points them out. He is familiar with these three strains. One has rosemary-like leaves, but still topped by the white petal ball clover flower, although there are less blooms on the plant. I'll save these to plant in the spring. You can pull them out and the roots, if you keep them dry and cool, will stay dormant through the dark months when the earth is cold.

Maybe I shouldn't have pulled this one out. I try to replant it where the earth makes a vertical incline of a few inches up to the sidewalk surface. The earth is soft and dry, I press the hard, thin roots into the earth.

I'll ask Mono if he wants to share space with me in the patch of herbs I'm planting next summer. The green angel keeps telling me he's gotten more space and he'll plow a plot just for me. I'll have all these rare kinds of clover and epazote and basil. It will take some thought, figuring out how to plant them so that they get sunshine at the perfect times of the day. So the more delicate herbs are shaded by the ferocious, sun-hungry ones. So the sun hits their leaves just so. It starts warming from the outside of each small leaf and its light spreads to the center like from the top of the mountain down into the valley.

The clock is here on the sidewalk. Touching it, breaking it, or it might have already been broken. This is the clock I was glancing at when I was lounging and reading. The one clock in the house that was set an hour late. The clock that made me late to my espionage assignment. That was a farce, scrambling to get the blonde wig on. But then I got there and pretended everything was normal, and it seemed to turn out okay, although I have no idea of the objective.

In the women's living room in my spy role, and a text message appears on my phone from someone I know. I-5 is completely stopped because of the thousands of people massing on the overpass in protest. When I see them, the freeway looks like a portion of 84. The overpass is phenomenally high. I see the crowd teeming up there.

Down here below on a large unpaved, tree-shaded area off the highway, I see them. These are the animals whose suffering that has inspired the protest. The massive animals' dark hides are flecked with blood from many small cuts. Their feet are chained to the curved boards so they are forced to stand. Their bodies are rigidly chained so they cannot change position. As I walk around the end of the platform, I see the silver metal chain around the silverback gorilla's waist. The chain pulls up, so his feet are chained down and his waist is being pulled upwards.

The crew of Hispanic men move around the beasts. The silverback is chained so rigidly that they can turn him on his side and lift him. Is there no danger from his agonized jaws. How can they torture him like this. But this is how animals are treated everywhere.

This is what we do to animals.

Oh, please tell me that the protest, the spontaneous uprising, is not in denial of the situation of all animals. No, no, let it not be that the people are massing in racist hatred of these Hispanic men. That's like blaming the slaughterhouse on the poor men of color, Blacks, Latinos, who are oppressed there as workers.

An exchange between me and the man who lifted the silverback as if it were so much dead meat. The immobilized animal is much too large for this man, or any single man, to lift. I'll not face off with him. I'll move away, because it's not about him.

This is what is done to animals. Pain in every part of their bodies.
This is what is done to animals. Pain in every part of their bodies.
This is what is done to animals. Pain in every part of their bodies.