Foxes & Octagons.

Nov. 10, 2010: Last night, my dreams flurried through rooms full of high-heeled, brunette women (who were all still rather shorter than me) and landed meaninglessly at our home, though it was a little different than our real home. With its wide eaves and grey walls, it was almost like a melding of our home and our Eastern neighbor’s home. With a small but seemingly heavy group of people, I made a mess of bringing Gabriel over to his cousin’s house, who lives eight doors down. This part is fuzzy to me, but I remember returning to her house, and running flat-out down the dark street in terrified haste. I was barefooted and felt each hard step in painful satisfaction. I needed to get to my cousin’s house, I needed to tell her something dire.

On my way, I passed a foster home, the white-blonde haired matron sitting outside on her porch, watching me with sunglasses on and an uncharacteristic, ugly look on her face. I ran past, and met a small, chubby girl sitting in the grass a few houses down. She was waiting for me, and angry that I somehow neglected her dog (or was it a fox?). I apologized, hastily explained myself away, and began running again. Before I reached her house, I spotted a small fox and a little, scruffy red dog (who seemed like am imposter to me). Out of sight, the dog began to bite the fox, and I broke them up, nudged the dog away, and set off toward my cousin’s doorstep, which was also, unlike its real-life counterpart, eaved and differently painted.

Although it was dark when I left my home, my cousin’s land was light as day. I knocked once and walked through the door. It led me to her backyard, which was empty except for a giant oak tree in the middle. The tree had a great, wooden house built in around in, lifted off the ground and wonkily octagonal. I noticed another baby fox next to the front door, and grew more worried. When I reached the tree-house, I saw my cousin, nine months pregnant, sitting inside, and lumbered in after her. When I got in, we began to talk seriously (about what, I can’t remember), and the house started spinning on its trunk of an axis. The scene grew distorted and drunken, the yard blurring and magnifying strangely. I felt compelled to tell her about the foxes I had seen on the way- somehow they meant something.

We finished our conversation and I left the tree house, it was night again. I tripped over the little foxes and dog, and stumbled home.