2009-06-02T17:01:00.000-07:00

Michael has a dream that his girlfriend, Jamie, has small antlers coming out of the top of her head. When he wakes up Jamie has already left for work. Michael doesn’t have a job and he lies in bed wondering what the antlers represent to his subconscious. He thinks: What do the antlers metaphorically represent? He takes sinus medicine and goes back to sleep and thinks about how he needs to find a job soon.

Michael walks two blocks to the organic grocery store and buys a tofu salad sandwich with carrot sticks and a coffee with soy milk and sits down and reads part of a short story by Richard Ford. Michael refills his coffee and calls his mom on the walk home. The sidewalk is narrow and cars are driving by very close and one honks at him and his mom asks if he is walking. Yes, he says, down a reasonably scary strip of sidewalk. Where’s your bike, she says. It’s only two blocks to the grocer, Michael says, my bike would ultimately be more of a nuisance. Michael says the word ultimately again in his head. Again he thinks: ultimately.

When Michael was dialing his mom’s phone number he thought about leaving a message on the answering machine, one about how he had submitted poems to an online magazine this morning, and how it made him feel stupid. But Michael’s mom answered and asked him where his bike was, and he said and thought the word ultimately.

Jamie calls Michael at 5:00 pm and asks if she should rent a movie. Yes, he says, but I don’t really care. Get whatever you want. Jamie says: I have to tell you something. Michael thinks: ultimately. Michael says: What? Jamie says: Nothing. Or maybe she says nothing. Michael is having trouble paying attention. He is thinking: antlers, subconscious, metaphor, representation, movie, ultimately.

Jamie arrives and there are small antlers coming out of the top of her head. Michael thinks: prophetic, subconscious. He tells Jamie about his dream. It wasn’t a dream, says Jamie. You woke up and talked to me. You ate too many sinus pills.

But, Michael says, in my dream you were weeping. Jamie thinks it is funny that Michael used the word weeping. She says, I was crying last night. I’m not sure why. I feel depressed or something. Like numb, or incapable of feeling emotions or just incapable. She says the last part with a sarcastic tone. Or maybe she said the whole thing in a sarcastic tone. Michael feels unable to concentrate. There is a small spider on the ceiling of his apartment. Jamie is pissed that he cares more about his fear of spiders than about this immediate thing.

Michael asks Jamie if she is cheating on him, or lying to him. Jamie seems angry and says: no. Or she’s annoyed and says no. Michael tells her that if she has been lying a lot the antlers could metaphorically represent the lies, like tangled weaved webs or something. Michael feels sarcastic. They watch the movie, which is foreign and about a vampire and Michael feels groggy from the sinus medication he took and they kiss and have sex and lie in bed and fall asleep.

The next day Michael walks to the grocer again and buys ingredients to make a salad and listens to Bob Dylan in his headphones, Boots of Spanish Leather, and Love, A Message to Pretty. At home he wonders if they represent where she’s been or something. This morning they seemed bigger, like they are growing. Michel thinks that the new, growing antlers on Jamie’s head metaphorically represent where she’s been. He feels stupid and sarcastic and eats salad and watches videos online.

He thinks: I need a job, and looks for jobs on Craigslist. He googles some words and checks his emails and falls asleep thinking about the antlers, which now feel like their own entity and probably signify something stupid like her family tree or something. Michael feels stupid and smiles and sleeps and listens to the Beach Boys or something and wakes up and rides his bike to Jamie’s house but she isn’t home and he forgot his cell phone. He rides his bike back home and sits at his computer writing things. He checks his email. There is nothing but advertisements.

He writes a poem about how the antlers probably somehow represent his inability to communicate with her. He feels narcissistic. In his poem he uses the word narcissistic. Jamie comes over and she has filed the antlers down to nubs that now look my like cowlicks in her hair, sort of symmetrical bed-head bumps. Michael wonders if this compromises the antler metaphor. He wonders if there even is a metaphor. If there even was a metaphor. Or if the metaphor has changed now. He feels a little pissed she did this. He feels narcissistic. They spoon and watch two episodes of the Office online and fall asleep.

In the morning the antler nubs have fallen out of her head and are in the bed by her pillow and Michael thinks they must have represented a series of temporary paths either her life could’ve taken or that their relationship could’ve taken. he thinks the path was chosen so they’re no longer necessary or something. He wonders if he has to break up with her now. If they represent things he could do or ways he could’ve acted towards her or with her. What if she has inadvertently gotten rid of him. Or purposefully?

Jamie goes to work and Michael feels alone and stupid and stands in the bedroom holding the severed antler pieces thinking the word ultimately.

2009-06-01T17:14:00.000-07:00

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