Finally got a date with that fine ass secretary we've been drooling over. Duuuude we were so smooth. It's not like we didn't know she was into us, she totally was from day one. Who isn't right? Ladies? but she kept tryin to play hard to get. All you had to do is lean over her desk and flip your hair (good call on the haircut by the way) and flash that smile while dangling a two person reservation at "The Original". She gave you some bullshit about "If I can make it" but you saw that little tug at the corner of her lips when you walked over.

Date went great, we talked about (you guessed it) me, or should I say "us". Not a heavy drinker though, kind of a shame, but that makes her a cheaper date in the end. For some reason she didn't want to stay for drinks, she seemed to want to get out of there pretty quick while seeming interested in ours-truly. She took us down this weird route back to her place. She must have thought I'd never been there but she lives close to a friend of mine and I must have known at least seven shortcuts that could have got us there quicker. After a while I figured she was trying to find some dark place to mack (lord knows I was) but it was just a bunch of dimly lit alleys and narrow one-ways with tons of graffiti. Some of the stuff is getting weird, maybe banksey's in town or something but there's a lot of screwed up tags, I noticed. Dark stuff. We finally get to her place and she gives me a handshake good-night. What am I? her dad? I'll make sure I get more next time.

We had another screwed up dream that night though. Didn't even smoke before bed. Maybe it's that salami from the sandwich platter.

It must be fall or winter because I feel that wet chilly breeze that makes my skin crawl when it hits my cheek. I'm in my winter coat, thank god, and my winter gloves of leather and yarn. I tug my scarf a bit tighter and the breeze caresses my ear maliciously. Why I am not wearing a hat is a complete mystery to me, why would I be out here without one? I am suddenly aware of a frigid pain invading my feet. Looking down I see I am shin deep in a black swamp of dead leaves and mud saturated with black rain water collected from what must have been a storm judging by the clouds blotting out the sun like angry bruises marring a perfect face of white. There is no color in this marsh. My dream is monochrome. The pain in my feet is throbbing as the water soaks through my socks and floods my shoes with gravel filled mud. I struggle to lift each foot and my steps feel like I have been running a flight of stairs by the time my foot lands back into the doughy quagmire. Suddenly my foot sinks too deep and I topple slowly over onto my chest. I feel sticks and thorns claw at my face like cat claws. It is an exhausting chore to push himself up from mud but in the effort he realized his shoe had come loose and now one foot was exposed to the near frozen swamp around it. I open my mouth to scream but I can only hear the birds scatter in the distance as my lungs pour fruitlessly into the sky. No voice, and irrevocably stuck in a marsh that knows no concept of charity or pity. I'm so tired that my heart beats through my chest and pumps tears from my eyes into the black carpet of dying foliage. I try to scream again and this time I hear only a whimper, like the stirring of a sleeping boy. I collapse into the mud and it embraces me as would a grandfather comforting a lost grandson. The cold makes me numb through my coat as it closes around me. The last thing I see before the blackness consumes me is a faceless man standing stock still among the skeletons of leafless trees in a thicket nearby. Was he smiling?