drop off

i'm still dreaming crazy dreams and letting too many of them get away. except that i woke up to a cruel 5 am alarm with the anger of this last one still locked in my jaw, its last confrontation still burned behind itchy eyes as they adjusted to reality. it was my dad. there had been an entire grocery store to paint before the grand opening and my father's silent instructions were apparently the only thing standing between me and my deadline. the problem was that the paint had gone clumpy. it hung on the wall like spoiled milk. but it was the absurdity of what had put me in such a compromising position, stuck between my urgent sense of duty and everyone else's blatant disregard for it, that led me to finally snap. after being forced to get into my car and drive to the site of the family soccer game he was watching with Puji and my brother, i got right in his face and mumbled things i would never dare say in real life. and i remember exactly how his incredulous eyes bulged out of their head - no doubt a stranger to stark, passionate truth - as my iPhone tore the hazy blanket right off that terribly climactic moment. the air in the bedroom felt thick with guilt as those last lucid moments began to recede. i was suddenly relieved i was getting up way too early for another airport drop off. and on Friday the 13th no less - not that it would raise any particular cosmic alarm bells for my practical father. was this psychological payback for the last disappointing post-income tax sum up? possibly. but there were other subconscious clues of stress building: the passing conversation of my mother sending a lawyer's letter many years after the fact, once again usurping the legal system to make a point that no longer needed to be made. i swallowed hard, wondering how many more times i'd have to do so. and there were other things that reality snatched from me before i could get them down. the mental indigestion of my dreams has become the place where i go to make sense of anniversaries that are no longer relevant, like old shoeboxes whose memories have long since escaped me. some people have already accumulated a lifetime's worth of memories. i can't seem to hold on to any. all i got are these random shards of dreams, their meanings to be reconstructed only after they have left me for good.