“For the longest time I felt I could not be myself…. And it feels like I wandered away from who I am—or was ….but can I go back to the me I was before? I….wish I could. I want to. But —I can’t find her….” I look at him now to see if my words have any impact
I cannot tell
I say,
“do you know how strange it is to forget what are the things you do between sleep and awake? Not hounded every second, censured thoughts ….. and end up like you feel like you have becomea zombie …. a stranger to ….myself ….you don’t know what I mean; I can see that by how you are looking at me —it’s like, even the books I once loved feel …. I’ve lost all connection ….i cannot find my safety inside.it feels —I am empty inside, a shell shock soldier and…. I’m trying so hard to …. find my —or any footing …. that feels real or solid or safe. What is safety to me? When everyone, people I think I can trust all ….turn out to be frauds and ….it all is so ….terrifyingly random and I am tired of dodging bullets.”
“Come home,” he says
Those two words are incongruent
…. you know, I mean in particular to whom who says this to me
How dare he?
“And where is that exactly?” I ask with some leap of an invitation he might be privy to information I’ve not myself come across
Home?
“Last I checked….” I open my purse and take out my driver’s license, “look, says here I’ve got one of those —so …. thanks!”
“You know what I mean….” he says and —when I look at him sat hunched over a cup of hot coffee I notice how small his tallness makes everything around him seem as his large fingered hand cups the little mug
then, I notice that furtive glance around he does
“Is this really home, duva?” and looks around again
“It’s honest. No strings attached. No overhead manipulations or euphemism expressions that demand acts —like empty trades for shelter—I’ve been trapped by enough of you predators ….” but I say this much more quietly and stare out the window, “really, what the fuck do you want?”
“You,” he says, “and your conversation—I miss your thoughts …. you thought I wasn’t listening but I was —and ….”
but I know better.
“Than why not say? Why not let me know? What purpose is it to listen only and not be willing to be as part in the experience of knowing the whole of all I am? I cannot believe anymore and that is —too bad. But it is not possible to will a feeling you don’t have and it is not possible to put faith into something that is a fraud.”
just using all the lines, I was not born yesterday. Tell me, what does it all mean? I’ve lost the will to believe
“Wasn’t there a code you mentioned?” I shake my head, “you are so full of shit. My conversation?” but I use the distraction of my phone to escape his conversation and happen upon a funny thing on YouTube
Jörn pulls away my phone in annoyance and forces me to look at him, holding my face by the jaw,
“yes— you are witty and clever and a brilliant artist and some men —one I mean— who really are worth your time can see that,” but I avoid looking up into the bolts of kryptonite
I agreed to meet at somewhere public. There is a nice cuisine down the road from me called Latitude 44 Bistro so ….I agree to meet
the drape from the window …..winter in the mountains; it is a horizon of cartoon Frozen and polar and fleeing geese which harkens its limp Charlie Brown appeal; the swell in my heart expands. As…. I nearly choke with its joy.
But it’s me. Like consider it is only just a mood, like how I worry for the world but by now I see, it’s not really needing that; it is a habit I must break. it is not my war. and allow what has thrown a dark cloud upon me to will it to go away. I must stop caring so much. Stop feeling. Stop searching for things that are simply not there and never were
“I do recognize and value there is so much more to you than —oh, I don’t know, some kind of a —sexbot,” he says this and drops his head down and says, “unlike—who is that guy you know —why do you?—you should know he is screwing his married coworker!” he tells me
I feel smarted as if by some blow
but I am confused
“What are you talking about?” I suddenly feel that vertigo and cover my face and from inside my hands I say,
“Jörn, what …. Are you insinuating you are monitoring my calls?”
Spies
they dig up and throw in your face. I shake my head and look at him. Did he really come all this way just to …. to ….hurt me? in this state of frenzy I reach for reasons for such a motive—what reason ?
“No—but why are you here? You do realize the Barn house and old farm house are about twenty minutes from here?” Jörn now tells me
Is it?
well, maybe by car
He hired a car to bring me to Latitude 44 Bistro
I feel like I want to go home
and once again I feel that chill because I don’t know what Home is. What or where. Bereft of whatever props that requires
“Another?” the waiter stops by to ask as he takes my empty glass
Home?
After the waiter evaporates I say,
“you know, I should have known you’d reappear—pop right back into my life when I saw that article about a Swedish airplane hybrid being tested at my local airport here—it’s like—you had to be behind it! Some excuse to disrupt my life again!”
Jörn looks over his shoulder. A habit. Because the restaurant is empty behind him.
But then he says,
“yes, because I know the nightmares have returned for you —and—yes, there’s a code only you can crack because ….” and here he seems almost in physical anguish before he says, “there’s a taped session of you that just surfaced….its from one of the sessions you did with Dr. Risa Rothschild which only they seem to have possession of and —this code was created as use for what we consider terrorist purposes.”
But I laugh. Only not at first. I keep replaying what he said. About the fifth time I laugh.
But stop. Because I replay part of what he said again.
“How do you know about the nightmares?”
I notice the snow has started again.
Slowly, I raise my eyes to him.
I get a chill. Like I know before he says it.
“Because Gerald has been in touch with me. He’s worried.”
Worried?
Now I say,
“can you Venmo me money to Uber home now?”
“No—wait….I should tell you ….I was sent part of the tape so—I know what it is about.”
That sick taste. It rises up. And I feel sick.
I look at him and search his face and wait but —I feel as if I already know

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