"Success"

Last night I dreamed I was going to marry
the prettiest girl in town—a kind of high school princess
with a pale smooth oval face and big cool grey
selfsatified eyes. Her hair was wheaty blonde:
she looked wholesome. I wandered through a postcommunist American
totalitarian Darth Vadar university building to find her.
She was sitting chatting with a gaggle of friends of both sexes
in a dim vaguely flourescent blacktile-floored cafeteria.
Call out to her! I thought. Take her away from these people!
Don’t let them keep her like you did with the two-day girlfriend
you had when you were fifteen! Don’t be a coward!

I leaned over the back of one of the group and said her name
across the black institutional table. I nodded upward when our eyes met.
She got up and walked toward the nearest end of the long table.
As I walked over to her I noticed I was wearing a puffy tan suit
and a splotchy floral tie. Our kiss was calm and cool. We kissed like
teammates. Then we began walking arm-in-arm toward the other end
of the long black table. I had the feeling of marching on a pre-plotted path,
to a rhythm of something expected not my own. When she spoke she voiced
my formulaic thoughts: “After today you’ll be married to the prettiest girl in town!”
There was nothing else for me to say.

I don’t remember the rest. My God! I hope I ran away!



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