2

I was falling from the sky a hundred billion miles per hour, bracing myself for the fatal impact, and jolting awake. The clock said 4:39 am.

It was just a dream.

It was a plane crash.

You know who gets in plane crashes? Rich people. 

I fumbled around on the floor next to my bed, rifling through piles of magazines and legal documents and unidentifiable foodstuffs, trying to find the switch to turn on my lamp and my book The Catcher and the Rye. That’ll put me right to sleep.

At 8:39, the lamp was still glowing a dull, fiery yellow and my book was strewn out on my chest like the unreadable book it is. I got out of bed and drew back the curtains, peering out the window down Main Street where everyone else was going about their normal morning routine. 

Nothing feels normal yet. But maybe I should give normal a shot.

My bedroom was a mess, so I thought I would start there by making my room back to normal. I stripped my bed and gathered my dirty laundry into a big trash bag for easier transport. I grabbed 10 quarters and threw on my raincoat, just in case, and headed to the Laundromat.

It was warm outside as I people-watched and walked to the Laundromat. My mother, who had been an avid bird-watcher until she had seen all the birds she cared to see and became a people-watcher instead. The great thing about people watching is that it’s fiction. It’s not real, or, at the very least, it’s not my reality. People-watching has all the drama of a soap, and it’s happening with real-life characters. The great thing about fiction like that is it’s not my own life.

I got to the Laundromat in record slow time and found washer towards the back. I got it going and watched as my clothes and sheets got covered in soapy water. I watched them spin around and take on new forms and converge and cleanse themselves of grime. Sort of like monks, really.

There was a clamor. The man with crazy eyes had spilled the laundry detergent all over the floor at the machine to my left. People.

He looked panicked and not too able physically, so I decided to help him. The months spent as a monk were really showing in my overt generosity. Up close, the man looked verifiably insane. Big, alert-looking eyes and a bit of a head twitch. His eyes were clear but he was busy inside. I hope people don’t think I look like that too. “I’m Charlie.” Visibly shaken by something other than his spilled detergent, he responded, “God bless you for helping me. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

Having done enough to clean the pool of clear, fragrant liquid off the floor of the already-disgusting Laundromat, I stood up, and from the ground, he gave me a kind of pleading look, so I lent my arm and helped him up. “It’s Yesu,” he said. “Excuse me?” It was then that I noticed a wooden rosary about to fall out of his pocket. A Christian. That explains the crazy. “My name,” he clarified, “is Yesu.” What kind of a name is that?  

As I walked back to Dreamwood Terrace, droplets of normalcy began to return.
 …411, 412, 413, 414, 415 – I was back to my apartment. I took off my raincoat and hung it on one of the 5 hooks to the right of the door. Normalcy, the ghost of the not-so-distant past, was creeping back in. I put my laundry away and headed to the kitchen to watch the local news. The newscaster said there was a meteor shower last night. Mom would have loved to watch.