Spidercamp

Keith Kalland, I will think of you

Keith Kalland, I will think of you every time there's a ladder in the road.

I enjoy that I can call my brother and

I enjoy that I can call my brother and say "we found a hawaiian shaved ice stand!" and he will say HOLY SHIT! and make plans to come visit me.

(a few days ago.) I was in a rowboat

(a few days ago.)

I was in a rowboat with a group of dark-haired women I did not know. We were stranded on a plain. The woman across from me told us she knew fourteen languages. We were impressed. She said, No, you don't understand. I don't tell you this out of any sense of pride. It's my example of how I wasted my life. I look at my life and I think, what did I do? Fourteen things. That's all. Who was I hoping to talk to?

The background melted. Grass and sky became one streaked glaze of color that wouldn't let you look right at it. We could only really look at each other, and the boat. The boat was suddenly sliding down a hill so fast we were terrified and then it spun us around and around. It was violent; someone was angry.

We discussed the fact that this might be a dream. We all tried to wake up but couldn't. Then, I knew what was happening. I told Maria, It isn't a dream. We died, or tried to, but it's not the right time. We have to go back.

I jumped out of the boat and when my feet hit the ground, I woke up. I lay there and thought about it a long time, because I was supposed to.

Every time I walk past the coffeemaker

Every time I walk past the coffeemaker in the dark, I think it's the black cat, but she's dead. This is not morbid. It's a memory. She was a good cat.

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Yesterday, on the shoulder of 75 south: a cop changing a tire for a young woman who stood by the bumper in the pouring rain under what was probably his umbrella, holding her baby, beaming.

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I went outside to cut my hair some more and there was a rustling to my left. Too loud a rustling for me to pass off as a mouse or a toad, too close to my bare feet for me to pretend it didn't creep me out. And a toad had hopped inside while I was trying to decide whether the noise was a rabid possum or a wild boar (both actual possibilities), so I went back in and got the toad out of the pile of laundry (he was up the sleeve of my bathrobe) and put him back outside and watched tv for a little while during which the wild whatever went away and when I did go out again, I was not killed.

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A catfish feast like no other. There's a story but I can't tell it till tomorrow because it's meant to be told in person first.

in the grocery store all the cakes

in the grocery store all the cakes were half-eaten. went outside and the sky was covered in a network of whirling black dots. i thought, i've had this dream before and it never amounts to anything good. someone fell out of a tree tangled in rusty chains and a cheetah. when he hit the ground the cheetah slashed him in half at the belly. i left his bleeding guts and legs there on the ground and strapped the rest of him to my back with the chains and carried him around. we were starving. we sat down to eat a bowl of dried grains. the people next to us were eating chinese food, and then they disappeared. i stole one bean sprout at a time and fed it to my friend, who was weeping. we hadn't eaten in so long.

HEY! drop the top!

HEY! drop the top! lose the roof!