Nematode

They're wild for me in France.

Because nearly every utensil I own is being corraded in the miniature dishwasher below the two burners, I use the handle of a large slotted serving spoon to stir almond milk into my dandelion root tea.

I have been thinking about it and I don't think I can forgive that easily, even though I have tried on several occasions. It isn't sticking and I'm still really mad.



Last night I dreamt I was a child and I was with a couple of other children and we pushed open the door of the darkened dispensary and ran about reading labels and exclaiming over fantastical products. Then I was my adult self again, and I was quietly placing a few items on a high rotating shelf so that I could come back and purchase them when the dispensary opened again tomorrow.

What I remember next is shopping in a large, fluorescent-lit shop and then being harassed by two young boys as I exited past the red plastic carts. One of them threw something at me, and when I turned to admonish him he rammed a cart at me, full speed, while his friend laughed. I barely managed to swing my ankle away from the cart, and the boy continued trying to ram the cart into my legs even as I exclaimed that I was recovering from a severe ankle injury, and could he please stop.

Next he and I were walking across the moving bridge, only he had not warned me it would be moving, such that I stumbled and fretted with my heart in my chest as steps inexplicably dropped out from under me. I paused and reached for the railing to catch my breath, only to have the whole railing drop away in the split second before I leaned all my weight on it. At that point I started to yell at him--for taking me on this bridge, for not informing me that it would be moving, for not warning me before the railing dropped away--but before we really got into it the section we were on shot up into the air, leaving my stomach somewhere on the grass hundreds of yards below us.

I don't know how we escaped that contraption, but somehow we were on the ground and the dispensary owner--a woman, around my age, dark-haired pixie cut--was hurrying across the field toward us. She gave us each an envelope containing large checks and I don't remember what else, as well as a gigantic, hunter-green sled-bike with a metal basket. I placed my envelope into the basket right before the sled-bike slipped our grasp, careened across the snow, through the busy intersection, and into the parking lot on the other side of the street. I was relieved to see that no one had been hurt--including the sled--but my relief came too soon. As I waited for the light change that would allow me to cross the busy intersection, a young mother hustled her daughter up to the bike-sled, climbed aboard, and started peddling furiously up the road.

I took off after them on foot, calling out to them to stop! stop! The light saved me--she had to pause and I reached the bike-sled and grabbed its basket just as the light changed to green again. Please, I said, just let me get my envelope out of the basket. She had placed reams of her own papers and envelopes in the basket, which made finding my own more difficult. As seconds ticked on and I still hadn't found it, she started trying to peddle away. I grabbed onto either side of the basket, shoved backward, and told her this was my sled-bike and if she didn't want to deal with me, she could deal with law enforcement. She got significantly more agreeable after that and, if I remember correctly, she may have ushered her daughter away from the sled-bike. I don't recall ever finding the envelope.