Chapter 2
Dreams. We have dreams. You have dreams, I have dreams, my Mother and Grandmother had dreams, thats just the way it is. We as a species think, and so as a thinking species, we think at all times. We think when we are awake, even when we are unconscious believe it or not. But most importantly we think while asleep. that is what dreaming is. And we ALL dream no way around it, whether you remember having a dream or not, you DO have them. Sometimes our brains do us a favor and let us forget our dreams, but not me. Let me just tell you, my dreams are different than the world's dreams, my dreams send a message, unlike anyone else'sdreams. And the messages? the messages are like letters, like someone out there is sending me a letter, they have to write it out, lick the envelope, and buy a stamp for it. but I only receive it in my dreams. It's like the secretary of my mind is receiving and opening it, and knocking on my door to give it to me. and then a voice reads it to me. Who? Who is sending them to me? Who is reading them to me? I sit in my bed every morning trying to pinpoint the voices. Trying to pinpoint HOW I know that these are not normal dreams. I know I will discover it eventually, I just need more...Time.
The dock is always wet. I don't know why, but it's always been that way. It's not that bad though, wet and cold is all I've ever known. In Gtuyin, Michigan, you're either cold and wet or wet and cold, and today-as is normal for most days- I happen to be both, which is always a good thing if you are interested in that sort of thing. I however am not. I've lived on or by the water my whole life, I like the environment, just not the weather conditions.
The market by the dock was uncharacteristically empty, there was not a soul. Even the other shops were unmanned, no one waiting to buy, and no one waiting to sell. What was most strange of all was, no boats, not a single fishing boat in sight, (excluding the 'Weekend Yacht' I live in) I was so confused. At six in the morning on a day of bad catches it was still busy. six-oh-clock in the morning, for most places empty at six is normal, empty at six at the Gtuyin marketplace? Never was there such a thing. The market was never empty. There was always at least one customer here, and there certainly was at least one other shopkeeper. every day I've worked here I've never seen this before. I waited, would anybody else show up? Should I just leave? No, I will wait. I waited what seemed like seven hours. I've lived and worked near this dock for long enough to tell just by the feel of it how long any amount of time is, but any amount of time can seem like any amount of time here in Gtuyin.
My co-worker Klein Zeller -an African-American Man who just turned twenty-nine and looked the part of someone that age- walked up to the stand with his hands in his pocket. He looked at me and nodded a greeting, I nodded back. He looked around at the lack of customers in the market, he said nothing, turned a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degrees, to get a good look around, and with a puzzled look on his face shrugged and went into the back to hang up his coat.
"What's the time" he asked.
"Eight-oh-clock" I said.
After a short pause-
"Don't you have a watch?" I asked.
"Yeah, mine says eight too. Just usually there's more than zero people at eight in the morning, y'know?"
He came out to the front while he said this. He looked at me as the question rolled off his tongue.
I nodded in agreement.
We spent the next few hours pondering silently over why no one had come. Every now and then one of us would start to say something, but we could never finish our sentences. Lots of tired "sighs" and bored shrugs. I was incredibly dumbfounded about this whole thing. The sky was a normal New England gray. The air was cold. The World seemed black and white. The water was perfectly monochrome, the stillness gave me shivers even though I've been here my entire life.
I began to feel very light-headed, as if each shiver was raising my very being to that Boston sky. My eyes were being drawn to the sea. My awareness was fading. How silver. How gray and silky, where am I?