yes, but...

i'll spend a quite night in, tucked away in a blanket somewhere in the den, next to the fire with a scotch and some beat up, ancient copy of asimov's to read through. this is the life i fall asleep into, the landscape of a dream where i am what i wish i were grown to be. peeling away, page by page, the last desire, uncovering a fresh escape: in the clouds of a deserted metropolis, above a fire-filled seafloor, back-to-back with a secret love against the end-all-be-all of villains, motorcar firefight. anywhere and everywhere. part of the ether.

(taken from c. william bunting's journals, originally found aboard the s.s. speakeasy, 1872)
it’s nice today, you think. it’s really nice outside. and so you stay a while longer because the weather is good and the sky is clear and the sounds of passing cars, screeching to a halt at every yellow light, starting and stopping as if this one light were the end of the world, is better than the sounds of self-loathing and regret back home. but, you think, the small fact that it is “nice” outside is hardly a good enough reason, is it? it is, but that doesn’t stop you from thinking of a better, no, scratch that, of an alternative reason. a more fitting reason…perhaps, because in your head, in the deep, dark back where all the little terribles are, there’s always a more interesting, a more comforting, a more dramatic reason…for everything.


what are the dreams of men like us? born into the waking world with never a want nor need to raise any little finger to task. what do men dream of when they already have it all? her shadow grew and fell in perfect tempo upon the bedroom wall. the shifting of bodies, in winter's cold, were all too eager to keep the other warm. this is a night i dreamed of: the triumph of tiny victories that led to this point, the shaking nervousness, the overwhelming excitement and fear, warm skin, warmer heart. the stillness of two upon the down bed. and the dream. the dream of dreams, and the passing thought.