i_dreamt_that_i_dreamt_04
crOwl lilly asleep was becoming, for her, a departure and an arrival. a taking off and a landing. a leaving behind. a welcome home, perspiring.

her dreams were glue that melted her to the sheets. in the first week after moving in with gavin she lost two jobs from sleeping through alarms.

it was the color and the smells she told people when they asked her why she couldn't wake up. she just started doing more art, while gavin's gardening business grew.

she dreamt that she dreamt and while she watched herself move about in the world she created she sighed for the beauty ad swore under her breath that she had never been more happier.

except for when the ghost came to her. 		070805
...
unhinged gavin walked into the sun room that lilly had taken over as her studio and found mountains of paintings and collages. all the visible paintings looked like childish recreations of a nightmare; black and round swirls with vague notions of shape and color underneath.

he walked over the nearest stack and started to look through. lilly had been living with him and trane for almost three months but from the body of work taking over the room it looked more like three years. she didn't let him come in when she was working. she never showed him any of the finished stuff. he found an oddly realistic painting of him smiling. the colors were drab; it drew attention to his smile and the seemingly glowing white of his teeth.

underneath the nightmare paintings of the next stack were a series of plants up microscopicly close but blurry at the same time. or the next stack with her obsessive musing on her favorite waitress at the coffee shop she hung out at sometimes while gavin was at work. he met her there once and noticed her oggling the girl as she went from table to table checking on her customers. when gavin asked her what she liked about the waitress lilly said 'i just like the way she moves.' the paintings were random snapshots of movement swathed in background detail. the painting of her face was also strangely flattering, her mouth caught between smiles and her eyes glittering.

gavin lost track of time sifting through the paintings. he had almost made his way to the collages of magazine pictures when she found him. he looked up like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar before dinner.

'what are you doing in here?' there was an edge of anger in her voice.

'just looking lil.'

'it looks like you were sneaking around while i was out at the store.'

'oh come on. ever since you lost your second job and i said you could just stay home and paint you are in here so much i barely see you. i just wanted to see some of what you've been making.'

she moved around the room, rearranging some of the stacks to hide the nightmares from him. 'you could have asked me instead of snooping while i was away. some of these are not for people to see.'

he grabbed her and she wriggled until he pressed her quiet against him. 'there's a gallery down the street that shows locals.'

'i stopped in there the other day. there was a show of ink drawings by a guy named cal swedel and some found object sculpture by someone named q. i don't think my stuff would fit in there.' gavin squeezed her until she yelped.

'you don't know unless you try.'

'maybe i don't want to try. maybe i don't want some trendy pretentious pricks standing in front of my work judging it and me.'

'but lil...' she walked out the door into the backyard and the screendoor shut with a clang. 		070811
...
unhinged lilly crammed as many of plant paintings as she could in her trunk and drove to the cute little main street a couple blocks from where they lived. she pulled into the parking lot of the corner store across the street from the gallery.

she walked to the coolers lining two walls of the store and bought a bottle of energizing vitamin water. 'hey is it okay if i open up my trunk and try to sell some of my paintings in the parking lot?'

the young cashier in his designer jeans and $400 emo hairdo glared at her. 'i'll go ask my manager.' he walked into a back room and an imposing middle aged man who looked like he had been in the military followed him back to the counter. he pointed at lilly. 'that one.' the manager shook his head at the kid's rudeness.

'ma'am my employee here says you want to sell paintings in our parking lot?' lilly nodded. 'you do realize that there's a gallery right across the street.'

'oh i do sir. i don't like to deal with people like that. i need to make some money to help my boyfriend with the rent this month and i don't feel like giving those people 30% of my money. that is if they decide my stuff is good enough to hang in their gallery.' lilly batted her eyelashes.

'well, let's just see if your stuff is good enough to hang in my parking lot gallery.' the manager winked at her and walked out from behind the counter.

lilly led him to her car and popped the trunk. she pulled out a painting of the stamen of an iris, the cellular divisions in a blade of variegated ornamental grass, the soft pinkness of the flower of a bleeding heart all in her signature blurry photo realism. she set the canvases against the bumper of her car.

'wow ma'am. those are wonderful. how much do you want for that one?' he pointed at the purple and yellow of the iris.

'$100.'

'you did that yourself?'

'of course.' she chuckled a little a tossed her hair over her shoulder.

'well, i get off work in an hour and i can run to the bank and get the money if you will hold that one for me.'

'sure. so i can stay here for awhile?'

'yeah. what else you got in there?'


the manager ended up buying three of her paintings. an old lady that shouldn't have been driving a car pulled up with her poodle in the passenger seat and bought the dahlia. a little boy, maybe about seven, that was riding by on his bike stopped in front of the variegated grass and wouldn't move.

'do you like that?'

'yeah, it's cool. it looks like a jungle. sometimes my dreams look like that.' he sat down on the sidewalk in front of it with his face two inches from the canvas and stared. lilly patted him on the head and set out more canvases around him.

a woman in a designer black suit and high heels with her hair severely pulled back came clacking across the street in her direction. 'miss, what...what are you doing here?'

'selling my paintings.'

'you can't do that here.'

'yes i can. i asked the manager and he said i could.'

'miss you cannot sell your paintings here.'

'because i'm cutting into your business? because i'm not going through your channels and giving you part of my profits?' lilly looked down at the little boy and lowered her voice. 'stick it lady. i've already sold five of them.'

'well fine. don't expect to show your work in my gallery.' she started to huff across the street, but she kept looking over her shoulder at the stem and underside of a dark red rose.


gavin came home from work to crazy good smells coming out of the kitchen. 'lil? where are you?'

'back here.' he could hear her voice coming out of the sun room. he opened the door and noticed an entire stack of paintings was gone and lilly had a beautiful black iridescent crystal necklace that looked like it was made for a princess around her neck. she was staring at it in the mirror and lightly fingering it, making it sparkle. she pointed at an envelope.

'that is for you.' gavin opened the envelope and found a sizable stack of bennies.

'lil....' he just stood there with his mouth hanging open.

'it's my share of the rent.' he started to protest. 'no gavin. i sold all my flowers today. all of them. oh my god it was great. i even pissed the lady at the gallery off. she called the cops on me and both the officers in the squad car bought one. hahaha. what a bitch. i even gave one away and i still have a little stash of cash for stuff like this.' she turned back to the mirror and started at the terrific bauble hanging from her neck and thought of the little boy that thought her ornamental grass looked like a jungle. a younger mother with two twins in a stroller had wanted it, but when lilly saw the crestfallen look on the little boy's face she couldn't sell it. she gave it to him and gave him a ride home. when she dropped him off, his mother started yelling at him for getting in the car with a stranger, but when she saw the painting and lilly talked to her for five minutes she changed her mind. he kept saying 'it looks like my dreams' with a huge smile on his face.

'lil?' gavin came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. she looked him in the eye through the mirror. 'i didn't mean for you to go out and do that...sell those paintings. i really liked some of them.'

'i felt bad for not having a job. and i saved us one.' she pulled a bleeding heart out from behind a half finished picture of the coffee shop waitress's thigh peeking out from under her skirt. gavin turned her around in his arms and gave her a full kiss.

'what's for dinner?'

'lentil pasta and salad.' a timer went off in the kitchen. 		070812
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