Sunday, February 10

I had attached a bungee cord to an end of the swimming pool. That way, once I bungeed upwards, I would come back down and fall in the pool. Easy enough.
The gardener thought it was brilliant.

I made my jump, upwards into the treetops, and when I fell back, found that I was carrying a monkey boy. He was half monkey, half boy. He was odd, but he meant well. I fed him some bananas but he said he preferred apples. We quickly became good friends.

Everyone hated the monkey boy. They thought he was weird and they didn't really accept the boy-monkey mix. I was upset by this. I didn't want anybody thinking badly about my new friend.

Meanwhile, on a little path that came close to the pool, my cousin Fernando's new-born daughter was out taking a walk. Everyone was horrified because it was so cold out and she wasn't wearing any shoes. They all called out to her from inside. Come back in, don't go out there, etc.

I got out of the pool, picked her up, and brought her in. I kissed her on the cheek and told her she hadn't kissed me good morning yet. She did. Then she picked up a glass bottle of Coca-Cola and started drinking from it.

Grandma wasn't happy. Little girls that young shouldn't be drinking Coca Cola, she said. The girl responded rudely and with lots of sass. I told her she shouldn't stick the glass bottle in her mouth like that because she could knock some teeth out. She said she probably couldn't lose any more teeth.

The kitchen door opened and my mother led the girl's mother out. She was eating ravioli with the little girl's milk teeth sprinkled on top. She looked absolutely disgusted.

The father (my cousin Fernando) grabbed his surf board and floated away on the swimming pool.

I left for my bedroom where I'd seen a huge bag of apples. I had to get monkey boy some food. It was a huge bag of red apples--they didn't look that good to me. I asked if anybody knew who they belonged to and Liz Childs (faculty at the school I work at) showed up to say they were hers. She showed me how good the apples were and pointed at places she thought were probably extra juicy. She said I could have one, but not two. I grabbed one, thanked her, and asked her where she'd gotten them. She said she'd write the address down for me. She said eating this many apples was how her husband stayed healthy.

She grabbed a piece of paper from my desk--it had my grocery list on it--and she scribbled down the address. When I looked at it I realized it was a monk's name, in Thai.

I grabbed my apple and went looking for monkey boy. Downtown Saint Louis was a mess. The police were fighting against a band of boys who had rebelled and were just...evil. Buildings had fallen apart and there was rubble everywhere. I could see shots being fired from one building to another. Mortar bombs and grenades exploded in the distance.

I had to walk another block before getting home when I realized a policeman had his gun aimed at me. He probably thinks I'm one of the rebels, I thought. I ducked and told him I was on his side, but it was too late, he had shot a grenade in my direction. I continued to plead with him, begging for my life. He smiled and said I shouldn't worry. The bombs were only filled with air and meant to scare more than to hurt. I walked over to where he was hiding inside the remains of a destroyed building. Across the street I noticed someone I knew had a gun aimed at the man. I tried to warn the policeman but it was too late. He'd been shot in the leg.

The cop fell out of the building and reached for his gun. My friend climbed out of his building with a different gun. He aimed it at the policeman and fired only to realize he was out of ammo. The policeman smiled and aimed his gun but the pain from his bleeding leg wasn't giving him a steady shot.

He handed me the gun and said "you better not miss."

I didn't want to kill anybody. I was just walking home. I looked at the gun and at my friend standing there with a sad look on his face. "What did you do?" I asked him.
He didn't answer, but in a flash, I saw his body surrounded in flames and what he had done: he'd poisoned and killed monkey boy.

I was furious when I woke up.