2
screams himself awake sitting bolt upright in bed, a thing he’s never done before.
Thank God he lives alone so there’s no one to hear it.
At first he doesn’t even know where he is—that derelict gas station seems like the reality, the morning light coming in through the curtains the dream.
He’s even rubbing his hand on the Royals tee-shirt he went to bed still wearing, to wipe off the oil that was on the side of the Havoline can he picked up.
There’s gooseflesh from one end of his body to the other.
His balls are drawn up, tight as walnuts.
Then he registers his bedroom, and realizes none of that was real, no matter how real it seemed.
He strips off the tee-shirt, drops his boxers, and heads into the trailer’s tiny bathroom to shave and shower off the dream.
The good thing about the bad ones, he thinks as he lathers his face, is that they never last long.
Dreams are like cotton candy: they just melt away.