Dam

Pat and I walk in a large remote park alone. There are small trees and shrubs, it's cloudy, we're in a clearing. He picks up huge rocks and throws them at me for fun, like he wants to force me to move out of the way. It really bothers me. He tries to hit me, throwing fast. I worry that I may not dodge them all. He almost hits me in the knee and the head. The rocks must weigh 30 pounds. I have some kind of small animal on me, like a monkey companion, who I also have to protect.

A man like a professor, like freakonomics, sits at a desk booth thing among objects. I go to him, the space is vague, white. The are some people sitting around some stuff waiting. He asks me questions and does a little experiment. He tells me to forget about all tense, like future. I say I'll just focus on camping tents. He smiles at my pun and says Good joke or something but I see pity in his face. He pours mayo from one jar into another on a shelf. He asks if there's anything other than mayo in it. I say I thought I heard a paper fall into the mayo, but that I think he tricked me. He says I can search thru the mayo. Somehow I associate tense with paperclip, maybe it's tin. He seems like David Foster Wallace. I say there is only mayo and I imagined a paperclip. I tell him I really want to get this right. He says nothing. There are no right answers, he just waits to see my reaction and my ingenuity. There's another experiment when he asks me if I understand by seeing or feeling emotion, is it sensible or intelligible. I say I like to be excited about life. The last experiment is about an old story about an actress who had her big toe cut off. I can't figure it out and I give up and walk away.

I meet Pat. We're in Mom's backyard. He did the experiments too. He tells me about the actress who lost a toe, named Frances B. He succeeded at that part. He teases me for not knowing and slices across the top of my right big toe with a serrated knife, it stings and I'm upset. I try to get away. He laughs and slices again in the same spot. I feel the teeth run along the broken skin. I see a red line across my toe but blood's not coming out.

Wake up scared, make a noise, and toe feeling exposed and tender.