Granny Is Not in the Suitcase

01.26.99
11.30.03

A bunch of my friends were going to kill this old lady for her money, only I was still a naif so I didn’t know it; they told me it was one of their aunts or grandmas or something and they were going to go visit her for money. I went too, she lived on the second floor of an old crumbling turreted house, it was white with the paint peeling off the siding and I rish lace curtains, very PWT, we had to climb a set of long, steep stairs and I couldn’t go all the way up into her room. I didn’t know why but I think maybe because I realized they were going to hurt her and I didn’t want to be a party to it. I blacked out for a little bit, and when I came to I realized my friends had just left with a huge suitcase full of stuff and I was still lying on the stairs surrounded by old shoes and moldy paperbacks and some dry chunks of cake. At first I thought they killed her and stuffed her body in the suitcase, one of them was famous for having done that to his family, but then I realized she was still alive. They had just taken some of her stuff, and I was lying on the steps outside her room. I was holding a beautiful woman’s shoe, soft brown suede made of all these tiny narrow delicate straps, almost as if it had been crocheted. And I looked and it was a size 10, a little big for me but I wanted it so I decided to steal it anyways, and maybe they would all think I was a little less naive when they saw me wearing granny’s shoes. Instead, when I realized she was after me I dropped the shoe, picked up stuff they might have dropped (fingerprints) and ran. For some reason I couldn’t run very fast and I kept throwing down more and more stuff but granny was still gaining on me. Finally we went past a nursing home, scene of utter chaos. It looked like the kids I was with, all guys, had tried to break in and stuff only to be intercepted by a group of chicks with the same idea. AsI ran past I saw a slightly heavy girl with brown hair pulled back and a little too much make-up holding a gun to one of my friend’s head as we stomped through a puddle of broken glass. I laughed, it was funny. She looked up to see me through the breaking windows as I called out a compliment to her, she called one back and we did a few rounds of it, giggling, while the guy was still spinning through chunks [shards?] of breaking windows. Then I looked out and saw the granny pass in an old housecoat, wheeling a bicycle. She laughed at me for going so slowly that even she could catch up. I hated her. The chick taking over the nursing home and her [my? illeg.] friends stopped fighting long enough to capture the granny and beat her to death. I tried to help but I think I was really more in the way. No one complained though, after all I was the one who had brought her, and if I hadn’t woken up here I would have joined the chicks.

The Devil's Pawn Shop

I dreamt there was a pawn-shop which only sold
things that people had held clutched while they
died. There were a great many kerchiefs, some
edged in lace crocheted by somebody’s
great-grandma, some streaked in mucous. There
were pocket-watches, the sort that used to
be granted by mining companies upon retirement
or passed from sire to son upon the
accomplishment of a 21st birthday. There
were greying kid leather gloves with
twisted fingers and engagement rings
rolling through trusting palms. There were
several chunks of gold and ladie’s fans and
one smooth, curiously cool grey stone,
the exact shape and heft of a
raindrop flattened by its own weight
at impact, the exact size of my
outstretched palm, made to hold and
curl the fingers over. The whole store
was several dusty little rooms, walls
and floors all bare [? illeg.] unstained wood
and creaking, slanting. It led back in a
little circle on itself to the entrance,
I wandered through to the door with
this stone, I know there were several
other people in the first room, all
vaguely, mustily female, exuding the
withered hymen scent of
Miss Havisham’s, there
was no one in any of the other rooms.