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I love the way sound carries early in the morning. At this very moment, there’s something strange and mechanical echoing in the distance, which I imagine to be a giant using a pogo stick, or a god banging on an anvil inside an aluminum warehouse three acres wide, as the new daylight streams in upon him through a window high in the eastern wall, smoke, soot, dust, ashes — yes, this is one heck of a sound. Those nearer its source have already gone mad, and the madness is rapidly spreading. Poor souls, who will survive, who will tell our story?

Other than that, things are fine here at the asylum. Before it was light, I was awakened by the following dream:

A bone-white demitasse delicately painted,
full to the brim with steaming, thick-foamed coffee;
and then, the gentle voice of an elderly woman,
urging me to wake up and remember.

Very interesting. And yet, I recall nothing about the table the cup was on, for instance, or if it was even on a table. All of my attention was focused on the cup. And what did the elderly woman want me to remember? The coffee, or something else?

What if she had just read my fortune, and I’ve forgotten that part of the dream? But if she had read my fortune, that would mean that I’d already had my coffee. Was the coffee hers, then? Was it meant for someone who had died before he or she could drink it? Was that someone still there with us in the room?

I don’t know. Maybe I’ll remember more of the dream, if there is more to remember, as the day goes by. Or I’ll imagine more. In all likelihood, I won’t know if I’m imagining or remembering — or dreaming. And I won’t really be worried about it, either. That’s one of the benefits of being wired this way. You take reality as it comes, then dream it’s something you’ve imagined.
Also by William Michaelian

POETRY
Winter Poems
ISBN: 978-0-9796599-0-4
52 pages. Paper.
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Another Song I Know
ISBN: 978-0-9796599-1-1
80 pages. Paper.
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Cosmopsis Books
San Francisco

Signed copies available

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