smooth

GRAVEL

28.  (1st Dream) I'm intrigued by the woman's suitcase, how it rolls along on two wheels with a handle up top to pull it. The two of us are walking along the railroad tracks having a conversation, and when we get to the train station, I help her climb aboard along with her wheelie suitcase. She settles back comfortably. (Fin) (2nd Dream) A whole contingent of racers has settled in our living room in Gibson Island. Mom and Dad are upstairs asleep. It's pre-race dawn, and I go around the house, room to room, turning off lights pretty much everywhere, except for the one leading down the stairs to the basement. I want to keep that one on for some reason. Everyone's still asleep and I head out to the kitchen part of the living room and begin making a beautiful bacon omelet, strips on top, and see people are beginning to wake up. Mom comes in and makes a wry comment about the cooking taking place, not realizing I'm the cook. The waters out in the harbor are greyish under the cloud cover, here off the coast of Northern Massachusetts, and someone says it's pretty much cloudy every single day of the year. He goes so far as to mention the date of the last sunny day, which is about fourteen years ago. I feel a mixture of astonishment along with a certain skepticism. Anyway, the race begins and all we have to do on this pre-race day is finish in the top three, and one by one, people drop out. I'm holding on now, racing around the gardens, pretty much keeping on the course, sometimes going way wide of the marks, which is clearly legal. As I'm racing by in our living room, someone mentions that if only three people are left at the end of the race (meaning all three of us who are in fact still racing) that means another fourteen girls will be added to the race come Sunday. Damn! I'd forgotten that rule. So it will be us three plus fourteen. I keep right on walking, knowing just by finishing the race I'll be in it. A laundry chute or something opens up just above me to the left, and I keep my head down knowing another race is taking place. The bicyclists will be coming down that chute. Sure enough, a sudden flash of water shoots out across me, bouncing off my shoulders. (Fin)