::fragments::

(1)
I was drowning my mother by putting a towel or a pillow over her head while she was in a puddle of water. At the very last moment, I would remove the towel or pillow and be completely overcome with sorrow and pain at what I was doing--and then it seemed I would do it again.

(2)
I negotiated a way for Stephen and I to keep living in our apartment with added amenities. I was in a position where I had to negotiate, with new landlords.

(3)
I was in a shack that belonged to other people, with a curtain held on a rope that stretched from one end of the room to another. I saw some crusty-looking kids living there. I was aware of another house down the street, a place I was once invited into but then not, and I knew I had to resolve whatever I had going on with the owners, an elderly woman and her husband, before I could re-enter. They were housing people in their rooms and I wanted a room there. In the meantime, I was using this shack with other people.

I packed and repacked my bags and left them in a room to go outside. There was a large fountain and I saw a silver shimmer move through it. Suddenly a huge swordfish was pushing through the water and hitting air. It was enormous, the size of a truck, and I was astounded. Other people around me were also panicking. I wanted to look but I also wanted to run. I knew that many things would suddenly be growing huge in size and I wasn't sure where to go. I went back to find my bag and couldn't find it. I searched the room but my particular bag was gone. Inside the closets I saw other piles of my clothes, but I wanted the clothes in the black bag.

As I was heading out, to figure out what my next move would be, AQ came by and told me she was leaving with someone, a man I didn't know. She asked if she could borrow my bike. I think people were afraid to drive their cars, so I said she could leave on my bike. I watched her walk away with my pink bike, and she too was scared. I wasn't entirely sure how I would get out of that place, and people were becoming more panicked and I could see more gargantuan swordfish jumping in the fountain.

A long involved episode of walking up and down and around this path to the ocean, that wound around tidepools and even something that looked like a very active whirlpool--dark and frothy--and I was afraid to jump in. Melanie actually jumped in it. She accompanied me on all these trips back and forth to the ocean, past the whirlpools and other people, even in the dark. We seemed to have no sense of time; there was just the walking back and forth in this mysterious and beautiful place, knowing the beach was within walking distance. I tried explaining to Stephen that Melanie had jumped into the whirlpool but that I could not--I pointed at it and it still seemed too menacing, as though it could suck you up and spit you out. Melanie had come out okay but I was still wary of it.

I was also very aware of the slickness of my black swimsuit, how shiny it was when wet.

I was a young prostitute, about 15, with straight dirty blonde hair. I lived in a large, dark room with blue walls with several other women of all ages and looks. The way people were dressed and the way the room looked reminded me of the 60s, although there was one woman who looked like a 90s Olympia punk. She was the one sent out every day and night while the rest of us stayed in. When I did get out to the red-walled restaurant, I noticed that all of her clients were young women like herself. Everyone wanted her. She never spoke and I barely ever saw her because her time was too precious and spent with all of her clients. I almost forgot she was one of us and lived with us.

The best part about her being 'out there' all the time was that the rest of us were not pressured to go out. I was laying in bed a lot in the large blue room with my bank of light switches next to me. I could control a series of lights in the room from where I lay.

The man in charge of us was tall, thin, attractive, Caucasian, and wore a light blue suit, 60s styled. He had blue eyes and was very kind. I was used to his kindness. When, one night, no one could locate the woman that was always out working, and there began rumors that she didn't even live among us anymore, and that she never really had, he became angered. I tried switching off all the lights from my bed before he could find me. I was wearing my light blue silky nightgown and hidden as much as I could on the perch of my dark bed. When he came to me I could feel the dread. He was no longer kind. I tried to convince him she was still one of us and would return. He was grim and told me that we would all be going out every night, every one of us. I was filled with despair thinking of us all being forced to go out and work in the night now, and full of despair that he had lost his kindness completely.