Nobody is Flying the Plane

    Central Indiana on a puddle-ridden, weather beaten road, President Donald Trump gives a speech to the cameras on Hoosier soil. It's cold and Autumn. A slight sleet blows across our skin under the dull gloomy sky. The dead, dry cornstalks in the field looks like skeletons sprawled out. Across a nearby field is my boyhood home. Air Force One is parked on the skeleton's backs. 

    We stand inside our circles and talk. My sister stands there too and talks. The President tells us that we need to fly out of the United States. We step aboard the American metal bird. Some faces I recognize. Others I don't. 

    We mingle in a dim lit cabin with maroon velvet seats. Refreshments and alcohol sit on two tables. In the captain's chair is President Donald Trump. He is flying the plane.

    Passengers fill their plates and their glasses. I go back for seconds and thirds. They make witty remarks and ask the President questions. Laughter can be heard. I sit there shy, I have Nothing to say. My mother appears from a bedroom behind us, her eyes sleepy, her voice scratchy and faint. She's confused. Doesn't know where she is. Her eyes meet the pilots and she smiles and giggles and takes a few awkward steps back. They talk. I laugh, "she won't leave him alone," I say. She monopolizes their conversation and drags Don by the hand and leads him to talk a little more. Nobody is flying the plane.

I wake up

City Life

The sun was down. Derek said he wanted to go dancing. We drove to the club and he went out on the floor by himself. I stayed at the table.

Later Reece had a television in the back seat. He said we were going to watch a movie. He would not give the apartment number. He put pieces of tape on the railings as he went up.

We followed the tape through the stairwell. On the fourth landing it stopped. We stood there. Somebody downstairs was coming up. Reece looked at the television and then at the door in front of us. He didn't say anything.

Laws were broken. Debts left unpaid. Minutes later we would be lying in a ditch, car wrecked, and surrounded by cops.

I wake up.

A Song In The Night

    My friends and I go to a concert to see a band that we enjoyed years ago. We get there early and find good seats. The concert goers enter the building wearing large, elaborate costumes.

    A large man sits next to me and falls on me several times. I don't know if he is drunk. My friend Derek sits to my right. I watch as people on the gym floor turn tables upside down to create a strange place to sit.

    The band begins to play. The crowd erupts. I look to see that Derek is walking out of the gym and two lesbians sit in his place. We flirt with each other. They want sex. I talk to them and they think my breath is bad but they don't say it outright. They make jokes at me. I stand up and leave the gymnasium. I recognize several of my friends as I walk out.

    Driving home, I get into an accident on the highway. It wasn't my fault. I leave my car and walk away, leaving the incident unresolved. I meet a man named Victor Davis Hanson in a building nearby and as we talk I become afraid that I will be in deep shit due to leaving the scene of an accident but I never go back.

I wake up.