Kickball Diaries 2
Maybe it’s the late nights and early mornings, maybe it’s because I run around outside all day, but I haven’t had a dream in weeks.
Last night it started on a kickball field. There were two teams, all adults, and only one person I recognized—my friend M., a drinking buddy. The field was a blacktop school yard: an amalgam of my first elementary and the school at which I work.
The game must have caught the attention of a YouTube vlogger, who ended up hanging out with our group. Afterward, she came back to my house and slept downstairs on the couch. She was there the next morning, and I thought how nice it was to make a random connection with someone over the Internet. I left the living room to get dressed, but when I returned, she was gone, though she didn’t turn off the television. I looked around the house, and then outside, but she’d left.
I stayed outside on the front steps and lit a cigarette. In the street was a homeless father and child. It was still dark out and very early in the morning. They were making themselves comfortable on a large piece of cardboard. I thought from how they were dressed that they might have been Hasidic. As I put out my cigarette and opened my front door, a large brown van pulled up. Two figures jumped out and forced the father and son to get inside.
