She was right, of course. III. Even now, as I write this, I am dreaming. I am dreaming of how I could crystallize how it feels to be me into a story, write an autobiography in the form of a novel, a la Vonnegut’s Slapstick. Thinking about an autobiography (or a memoir, or whatever) in this way is much easier for a person who can’t help but dream. Dreamers are used to dredging up characters and scenarios from the subconscious. I’m not really sure how to turn raw memory, my memory, into something meaningful. I’ve never been much interested in my own experiences, and perhaps that’s because I’m used to dreaming. The dreaming process allows me to use memory without having to confront it directly. Tinkering with the attitudes and actions of characters is really tinkering with my past, examining it in a different, more palatable form. This is my weakness. (Or the other possibility: my experiences are genuinely boring.) As usual, I feel as if I haven’t gotten any of this right. I feel as if I obscure instead of illuminate myself. Let me dream for a moment. I write about a child walking home from school. This child could be me, or a past version of me, but he’ll have a different name and act differently than me. The child is thinking about something he overheard at school, a small, sweet-sounding tidbit of language that he repeats in his head over and over again. It is winter, and a light snow begins to fall. When he reaches his home he finds that the front door is locked. Confused, he stands and ponders the stubborn door. The door is never locked on weekdays. He drops his backpack in the snow, so absorbed in thought he doesn’t know he’s done it. He walks around the house and finds the back door locked too, at which point the child begins to panic. He pounds on the door, the panic so sudden and virulent that all of his energy is spent being somewhat surprised at it. Every part of his body seems to be vibrating, his hands especially. They’re quivering so badly that he thinks they’ll detach themselves and flutter away. He realizes he should be crying, yet he is not. At this point he retreats into his thoughts again. We find out that he was involved in the earlier incident, the one with the sweet bit of language, and that he was sent home early for his bad behavior. The story ends where it began. Or this: a man arrives in a foreign country, one that could be real or fictitious. He prepared for the trip for a long time, and paid special Page 42
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