Dream Journal
I was with Melissa and my parents on the boat. There had been previous damage to the boat, and I was trying to hold the mast with the crow’s nest up straight ant tall because it was very wobbly and I didn’t want it to break. I asked my dad if I could let it lean back against the boom, but he got very angry that I had even suggested it.
The waves got bigger and bigger; one was so big that it flipped and flopped the boat all around. We swirled under water with the boat as it spun. Everything got dark as we went under water, but I had a pocket of air and for that i was grateful - I was sure no one else had a pocket of breathing air.
The boat’s spinning and twisting slowed down and I wondered if I would be stuck in this pocket of air under water not knowing which way was up. When I finally found the surface, my parents and Melissa were nowhere in sight. I knew that they had gone for help.
The boat had righted itself and I went into the cabin to wait. I sat for a while when I noticed the boat was heading too quickly into a very small cove. The cove had cliff walls on all sides and I knew the boat would hit the cliffs if I didn’t do something. I rushed to get into the top house, and my feet kept slipping on the wet stair rungs.
Finally up in the captain’s chair, I stared at the levers and couldn’t remember which ones did what. I needed to put the boat into reverse immediately.
I turned around so I wasn’t looking at the cliffs and pulled on the levers to my left as hard as I could. The boat sped up a bit, so I pulled them in the opposite direction. The boat stalled and pushed backward a very little bit.
I was proud of myself for thinking of it and for being lucky, but didn’t want to turn around and see how close it was. I wondered if I should try to drop the anchor or if anyone would look for me in this little cove.
Then I was waiting in line with the other kids my age from the church as they were getting recognition for certain things. We each had a different vegetable sliced and arranged on a plate to present, and I held the tomatoes.
Tina said something to me and I slapped her, unappreciative of her attitude. She laughed to show me what she had said didn’t mean much of anything. A church deacon called each of our names, and everyone went up one at a time to present their vegetable and get recognition for their work during the previous year.
I waited and waited; since I was the oldest I would have been called last, but he never called my name. He had moved on to some other topic and I was very hurt that I had been left out. I had accomplished just as much as everyone else that had been called, and I still held the plate of bright red sliced tomatoes.
I looked at a graph of all of our cooperation over the last year, and mine was just as much as anyone else’s. I didn’t understand why I had been left out.
Then I was on shore eating a very fancy dinner with my family. One girl at another table kept jumping up to wave to her fiancé who was leaving on a ship for a very long time.
She wore a very nice but simple long white dress from an older era. She noticed the ship had stopped moving forward, and she knew that he was coming in for one last goodbye. She jumped up from her table very excited that a few other patrons, my father included, went over to the window to look at the ship.
I went into the kitchen to get away from all of the ship talk. When I came out of the kitchen, she grabbed my hand and asked me to bring a tray for her fiancé to take off his coat. The only thing I could find was an old, greasy and rusty baking sheet, but she had me follow her anyway.
We met her fiancé outside the restaurant and when she offered to hang his jacket over my baking sheet, he turned his nose away. I offered to hold his jacket with my hand, but he didn’t hear me and kept his jacket on.
We followed his straight back and fancy uniform inside the restaurant. I didn’t like him.
I was staying at my parents’ house in my old bedroom. I was getting ready for bed and had to pee, but the bathrooms were out of commission. My parents had set up an old cot in the middle of the basement living room to use until the bathrooms were fixed.
I went out into the living room and found my dad was getting ready to sleep on the couch right next to the cot. I laid down on the cot and pulled the blankets up to my chin so that I could pull my pants down and pee, but was very uncomfortable with my dad there.
While I laid there wondering how to get him to leave, Lacey jumped up on the cot and I told her to get down. Dad cracked a joke and then got up to let Lacey outside.
I tried to hurry up and pee while he was gone. I pulled my knees back and out and felt pressure on my bladder, but couldn’t urinate.
I walked out of my bedroom, down the hall, and stepped into a large group of religious people. I pretended to be saved and grabbed my dad’s hand to bring him up front with me so I could be baptized.
I wore a white bra underneath a white top, and knew that I couldn’t be baptized in a white t-shirt: I needed a different top.
I went back to my bedroom to change and found Briar lounging in bed, reading a book propped up against a ton of pillows. The bed was decorated very richly, and a servant was painting her top white blanket a very light and silvery blue with a small paintbrush.
I couldn’t find anything to wear. Marty offered me his burgundy choir robe. I put it on and lined up with the others getting baptized.
We had to jump into the baptismal and play dead before getting out. Floating on our stomachs with our arms out for a few seconds symbolizes Christ’s death for us.
Themes: Dad
At work, my coworker Jeff took the phones off forwarding before I could get to it. While standing in a long hallway I told my supervisor Rhonda that I wasn’t logged in yet.
I went into a hospital room with a donor’s family; the donor had not yet died and I sat with the donor’s wife. Jeff and my father and other staff members kept walking through the room while we waited for the man to die.
The man’s wife asked about the frequency of letters we would send her after donation. I listed all of the contact that we would make, but couldn’t remember how many phone calls Linda usually made to the family. I wasn’t supposed to be talking with the family yet and felt very unprepared. The woman was grateful for the information.
I invited her to a quieter room in the back where there wouldn’t be so many people walking through the room. We stood up to leave and my dad kissed me on the lips. The woman looked surprised and asked how I knew him. I could tell that she knew him, too. I told her that he was my father. I wanted him to let go of me.
Themes: Dad
I was sitting at a large table with my family. Rodney and Jen arrived and gave everyone hugs. My dad, sitting at the table’s head, pointed them to two seats. John finally showed up, late, and looked over at the only remaining empty chair, but there is no shoulder or elbow room for someone to really sit there.
I had been pushed further and further over to make more room at the table until my small plate was right at the very corner of the table, pushing my chair out a ways. There was hardly enough room at the table for me as it was, so it would probably be better if I was moved.
Mom took John’s plate and mine and put them at a smaller round table across the room. We sat there and looked at each other, our empty plates, and the other table filled with the rest of the family. My other siblings slowly gravitated toward our table until it was full.
Heidi took Tay to the hospital for a checkup, and I offered to watch the other girls. Byrd came up to me and asked how damaging a dull pair of scissors would be to her ear; I looked up from my book and she was holding a pair of scissors at an angle on the side of her head, points down, trying to cut some hair.
I asked her why, and then I saw that she had nearly cut the top of her ear off. I was surprised it wasn’t bleeding. I took her and we went into the other room with the adults and I asked my mother if doctors could stitch up an ear. She looked up at me and I pointed to Byrd’s hanging ear.
My mother grabbed Byrd and they went off to the hospital, but not before the top of her ear falling off altogether. Everyone else followed them to the hospital, and I wandered back to the other cabin.
Two people stood in the doorway talking, and I walked around them so as not to interrupt them. When they had a break in their conversation and both looked up at me, I asked if they were aware that everyone was at the hospital because of Byrd’s ear. They looked panicked and ran off.
I sat on the couch with a book and read for a half hour or more, the house was very quiet. I suddenly realized that I should be at the hospital with everyone, too. While it would be nice to be here in case someone else came by, no one would come by because they were all at the hospital already. I jumped up to get dressed.
Themes: Dad, Left Behind, Mom
I stood with my mom and dad in tall wetland grass next to a lake. My dad goes into a long explanation of a large stump in the back yard. My mom had cut it down little by little instead of pulling it out properly. He said that other little trees had started growing from its stump, so now there were 100 little trees growing where we hadn’t wanted one.
Testing me, he asked why all of the little trees had attached to the stump, and I repeated his reasoning that the water was doing it. I didn’t want to be a part of this conversation at all.
He pulled me down on top of the stump with a hundred new growths. Another girl was kneeing on the stump already. She was naked from the waist down and facing away from us so that we could see her butt very prominently.
He reached down to caress her butt, but I wouldn’t let him. I was sitting with my legs tucked beside me and he put his hand on my hip. I stoop up quickly and announced that I would not be going to the store with him, even if he did let me drive and bought me coffee. I didn’t want to go and that was that.
He left for the store with Melissa and I stayed and helped my mom clean up the dishes. I washed away every trace of him off me and down the kitchen sink with the rest of the dish water. Finished in the kitchen, we could then somehow see what they were up to.
The two that had gone with my dad had rope of some sort and they were using it to fend him off. My dog Lacey appeared on the stump and I knew I had to send them a better rope to help. The only way to get the rope to them in the other dimension was to have Lacey swallow a strand of pearls.
I put my pearls in her mouth and rubbed her throat to encourage her swallowing, like when I give her medicine. She couldn’t swallow the pearls because they were too big; she started choking on them so I pulled them out. I had to find some way for the dog to swallow them so I could send her over to fight my dad.
My parents, Melissa, and I were going somewhere and there was a lot of mud. The roadway had flooded so much that someone had erected three-foot stone walls on the road shoulder to keep a path dry-ish for walking, but the water was threatening to spill over the wall.
We walked carefully and tried not to disturb the water, sticking to the driest places we could, but when we reached our destination our feet were soaked and muddy. We stopped at a small house to change our shoes and socks, and we saw something on the floor inside the house. I couldn’t tell what it was, but mom told me to hurry changing my socks and get back outside.
Once outside, I repacked my bag and watched Melissa pull out brand new dresses, costumes and shoes: a whole bunch of stuff she had bought on the trip. Some of her new things were wrapped in plastic and flattened like cardboard.
I told her that not everything would fit in her bag, but she didn’t care: she loved the new outfits she had purchased. She put a few of them back into her bag, zipped up and was ready to go. As my parents started out I told them to wait. I went behind a table where I found all of Melissa’s old clothes and some of her new ones that wouldn’t fit into her bag: she had stashed them to leave them behind.
I pulled the clothes out, handful after handful, angry that she was being so wasteful. I wanted to throw them into the flooded road, and started to do so until I realized that my parents had paid a lot of money for them and they would be very hurt if I did that.
My mom told my sister to pack all of it, but she couldn’t fit it all into her bag and she was very snotty about it.
I was driving a car at night with my mom and Melissa. We pulled up to a stop light behind a large white delivery van. The short male driver got out of the van, walked to its back, and opened its back doors. One of the doors smashed into my bumper as he opened it, but he didn’t seem to notice or care that he had dented my car.
I got out of the car and yelled at the man for damaging my car. He turned to face me and dragged me back behind my car. Yelling at me and keeping a firm grip on my arm, he told me to put the lemons and the sugar he was holding into my gas tank.
I grabbed a cut lemon and slowly squeezed its juices into my tank. I acted like it was no big deal because I didn’t want the man to think he was getting to me, but also because I knew the lemons wouldn’t harm my car at all. I took my time because I also knew the sugar would cause major damage to my car.
He pulled me back around front and I could see that inside the car, sitting on the back seat beside Melissa was a large tray with baking soda. I knew that if all of the lemons and sugar got into the gas tank, they would combine with the baking soda and the car would explode.
I was then sneaking down the fire escape at my parents’ house. I needed to leave but didn’t want to explain to everyone. I saw Bruce going up the fire escape with a backpack slung over one shoulder. We talked for a while and I agreed to house sit in his apartment while he was gone for a few weeks.
His apartment was just down the hill a little bit from my parents’ house. One day my father saw me coming out of Bruce’s apartment and got very, very angry. He grabbed me in the parking lot right next to my car and held me to the ground, yelling at me. I struggled to get up, but he was too strong.
I was laying in bed under the covers with Dad laying next to me on my left. He asked me about “that other website” just for him; he wanted me to get it up soon. I told him that Mom didn’t think it was a good idea, and I agreed with her.
He said that he couldn’t wait, and I told him that I wasn’t going to do it. He got angry. I knew that he was sexually frustrated, and I hoped he wouldn’t try to make me do anything about it.
Then he was leaning over me, standing near my side of the bed, with his hands near my shoulders. He grabbed me and lied down on the bed as I jumped up. I pleaded with him to not touch me, to leave me alone.
He reached out for my arm and I told him that I would scream and yell for Mom if he didn’t leave me alone. I didn’t think he would let me cry out or get her involved, but as he tried for a better grip on my arm, I hollered out and called for Mom.
I managed to pull my arm away and get out the door. Crying, I ran to the stairwell and halfway down the stairs saw my mom start up. I hugged her at the bottom of the stairs and stepped behind her as she looked up them.
I came across B’s blog. I didn’t know that he had a blog, but someone pointed it out to me. It was very spartan with a white background. His posts were short and nearly incoherent, but one talked about his seeing a Dahlia in Fairbanks. I recognized the name Dahlia, and after a bit realized that she was a prostitute in Fairbanks.
I was then talking to my father on the telephone, and I asked him about Dahlia. He told me that he had gotten Dahlia as a present for B. I was so angry with him to be interfering, and I told him that he had no right to do something like that.
Michael’s brother had bought a small cabin just down the hill from my parents’ place, and Michael had just moved in. Michael walked up the hill to visit with me for a bit, and I told my parents that I would walk him home so I could show him a quick trail between the two places.
We went downstairs to leave from my parents’ basement door, but there was a moose yearling staring in the picture windows. When it saw us, it went nuts and threw itself at the windows trying to get in.
We went back upstairs and my dad went down to “take care of it.” Michael hung around for a while longer, not uncomfortable around my family but definitely wanting to get back to his own place.
I headed back down the stairs to check on my dad’s progress, only to find he had let the yearling inside and it was in the process of freaking out in the root cellar while my dad watched television. The yearling ran toward me, and I ran up the stairs.
Rodney stood at the top of the stairs and I jumped into his arms with my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist to get away from the moose. Then I felt a penis inside of me. We stood there for a second or two before I calmly got down like nothing happened.
I was at my parents’ house and had to urinate. When I got into the bathroom in the basement there was a lot of poop in the toilet. I went to the upstairs bathroom and there was more poop in that toilet. The toilet in my parents’ bedroom had even more poop in the toilet. I decided I could wait and wondered if it was my dad’s doing.
I was at a high school hockey game with Michael who sat on my right. My right leg was pressed against him and I linked my arm in his. The arena was huge and packed with people; we waited for the game to start.
My parents stood on the floor down below, 20 yards apart from each other. They both faced left toward an exit and were completely emotionless.
Michael recognized my mother immediately even though she was in her late 20s. I pointed my father out to Michael because he, too, was in his late 20s and I knew Michael would not recognize him.
I leaned closer to Michael because the crowd was loud and energetic. He turned his head toward me at the same time and we kissed very sweetly. I looked up to see my mother looking right at me. I smiled and put my head on his shoulder.
Dad took Melissa and me to a greenhouse to buy plants. Once we got inside the greenhouse we discovered that the shelves and pots were empty. We were late and most of the plants had already been sold.
I wandered around for a long time while Dad talked with some of the other adults. There were a lot of people in the greenhouse standing around talking, but none of them were in any possession of plants. I found three flats of ferns in one corner and grabbed them even though I didn’t like them.
I went upstairs and saw that it was similarly empty; Marty and Stephanie were up there goofing off but I just wanted flowers.
I saw a glimmer of pink and purple across the room and dashed to one pot that appeared to still have some flowers. Upon closer inspection, however, I could tell that whatever had been planted in that pot had been removed and three little flowers had been pressed to the side of the pot and dried there.
A volcano had erupted underneath my parents’ house. I and two of my siblings rushed to the basement to assess the damage, and found lava seeping through the bottom of the walls in my old bedroom and the computer room. It was bright red and pulsing as it seeped through the walls.
We decided that we needed to get away from the lava very quickly and so we decided to hide in the root cellar in the basement. We made sure the light was on and latched the door shut behind us. The cement floor quickly became too hot for us to stand on, so we stepped up onto some plastic gallon milk jugs still filled with milk. This put our heads very close to the ceiling and we pushed our hands against the ceiling to help keep our balance.
Soon the floor had heated up so much that the plastic milk jugs started to melt. Rodney said that we really needed to get out of the house. He, being closest to the door, opened it and we prepared ourselves for what we might find. The lava had come further into the basement, but there was just enough of a path for us to get to the basement door.
When we exited the basement we found my dad in the lawn. We all turned and stared with him at the house which was now sending waves of steam up into the sunny sky. We turned and hurried up the hill toward my grandparents’. We didn’t get far when I realized I had left my camera in the house.
I turned back around and rushed back to the basement door and found my camera in its case sitting on the porch. Grateful to have it safe, I headed back up the hill. Then I remembered that I had left my cell phone in the house too, but figured it wasn’t important enough to risk my life.
Once we were a safe enough distance away my dad said that he would go back to the house and see what he could do. We waited at my grandparents’ for a long time with my mom before we decided it was safe to return.
When we got back to the house we found the computer upstairs turned on with textbooks open on the desk. Dad had been studying for a class instead of trying to stop the lava, and he was no longer in the house. He had gone down the hill to my uncle’s house.
Themes: Dad
I sat at my parents’ dining room table in their basement. My mother, sister-in-law Jen, brother John and I were mass-producing a large number of cupcakes. I had brought a few cans of spray frosting to make the process go faster. I handed one can of frosting to my mother and I took another. The frosting came out of the cans very fancy and pretty. I frosted a few cupcakes when my frosting can sputtered and splattered frosting everywhere. I said, “Fuck!” and knew immediately that I shouldn’t have said that in front of my mother, but chose to not say anything or look guilty so as to draw any more attention to it.
Since that had been the last can of spray frosting, I announced that I would make another run to town and get more frosting cans since they seemed to be working nicely. I ran up the stairs and out to my car in the parking spot next to my mom’s car, the one I used in high school. Melissa was sitting in the passenger’s seat of my car ready to go.
My dad was leaning into the open driver’s side door. I saw him grab a plastic container about the size of a piece of paper and had a bubble at one end to hold one of my new contacts. From the porch I could see him place the bubble up to his eye and push the contact onto it. Then he turned and ran off.
I was angry that he had taken one of my contacts. Melissa stood out of the car and asked me to run back inside and grab the jacket she left on the pool table upstairs.
Back inside I walked towards an upright piano that sat on stage in a concert hall. I sat down at it and fingered the ivory keys. I needed to urinate on the keys, but before I was able to even stand I heard someone tell me to play something. I looked up and Bjorn was sitting in the third row. He was leaned forward, anxious to hear me play.
I turned back toward the piano and tried to remember one of the songs I had memorized back in high school. I could hear them in my head but could not remember where to put my fingers. I wished I had my sheet music with me.
I was sitting in a booth at a restaurant with my parents looking over the menu. I sat across from them, my mother at my right and my father at my left. I faced the entrance and all of the other patrons were behind me.
I had been to this restaurant a few hours earlier for appetizers with two friends, and the waiter told us that our meals were free because of the appetizers we had chosen. So I had brought my parents to the restaurant for some good, and free, food.
We had placed our order with the waiter when two women — they were possibly waitresses, but definitely worked for the restaurant — entered the main area of the restaurant and began interacting with the patrons. Only these two women were completely naked.
One of the women sat down at our table on my parent’s side. My father had switched places with my mother so that he was to my right and she was to my left, placing the naked woman directly next to him. She was very chatty and perhaps a few years younger than me. She wasn’t acting sexy or talking about sexual things, but instead was a very pleasant woman.
My father leered at her and we heard an announcement over the loudspeaker above the tables reminding the customers that touching the women was strictly forbidden. My father, acting drunk even though he had not drank anything save water while at the restaurant, leaned over the woman and asked her if he could fondle her breast. “Better yet,” he asked, “can I fondle your mama’s breasts?”
The naked woman looked worried and couldn’t get away from him easily. I told him to knock it off and sit back, which he did but not before grabbing the naked woman’s wrist. She got a panicked look in her eyes. I stood up and, coming to the other side of the table, pulled her up and away from him. Only his grip on her wrist was solid and he wasn’t going to let her go. I pried his fingers off of her wrist and ushered her into the safety of one of her coworkers.
After watching them go into the back to make sure she made it to safety, I turned back toward our table and yelled at my father. I pointed fiercely at him and demanded that he behave himself. He shrunk back against my mother and appeared to be sorry.
I sat back down across from them disgusted at his behavior. I saw the menu sitting on the table and knew he had ordered the most expensive thing at the restaurant at $998. I was furious that he would try to take advantage of first the girl and then the restaurant for providing a free meal, so I got up and left.
On my way out I passed through a hallway with an modern open lounge area at one end. In it were a bunch of people in their early 20s sitting on the couches, laughing and having a great time.
The naked woman who had been assaulted by my father was sitting on one couch, still naked, and quite enjoying herself. It seemed that she hadn’t been affected by his behavior at all.
Themes: Dad
I was in my mid-twenties and in Homer. Sitting on a stool next to me was a female midget. She had wrapped her arms around herself and looked quite traumatized and withdrawn. She had been on my father’s fishing boat earlier that day, and I wondered what had happened to her.
I left Homer, and when I returned I was still in my mid-twenties, but everyone and everything else had aged five years. I had been gone for five years but I hadn’t aged. The female midget was now a mother and had a lesbian midget partner who asked me if I knew a particular midget in Fairbanks. She was described as always wearing flannel shirts with the sleeves cut off. I did not know this particular lesbian midget, but I thought that her description could have applied to all of the lesbians and the midgets in Fairbanks.
I entered into a different room and found Melissa sitting on the dining room table. She was beautiful, taller, and older than me since I had not aged while I had been gone. I ran up to her, crying, and threw my arms around her. I told her that I had missed her terribly. Crying, she said that she had missed me as well.
I noticed that Melissa was wearing a red, white, and blue striped shirt. A friend of hers walked in from another room also wearing red, white, and blue stripes. I knew that these matching costumes had important symbolism. Looking down, I saw that I, too, wore red and blue stripes separated by thin white stripes.
I turned to the midget and told her that her baby is my dad’s. She looked shocked, but knew that I was right. She left to confront and acknowledge her past.
I was then sitting in the middle seat of a minivan that was driving towards Homer from far out East End Road. My father-in-law sat in the passenger’s seat. He was very skinny, perhaps too skinny, and divorced from my mother-in-law. So much had changed in the five years I had been gone, yet I had not changed at all. I wondered if I could still call him ‘Dad.’
I stood at my parent’s living room window with my mother looking out at my father’s shop. I could see that there was a large square pit dug underneath the shop, a pit so deep that I could not see the bottom of it. The pit was surrounded with lush green grass that had browned near one corner. The shop was resting on top of a very large round pole, the bottom of which I also could not see.
I asked my mom what had happened to the shop. She told me that she had asked my uncle to dig up all the browned grass surrounding the shop and replace it with fresh grass seed. Apparently he dug and dug until the hole became a giant pit. “And he still didn’t get all the brown grass,” my mother said.
I was at a slumber party at Dooce’s house and my father was dead in her basement. We had a fun time in her clean and bright house, even though we knew we would have to deal with his body before the visit was over.
The children’s room was also in the basement, but appeared to have been originally intended to be a separate apartment. The space was very large and included two separate bedrooms and a kitchen.
I told Dooce to sit by Dad’s body while I finished packing up the car; he was to be packed into a small bag last.
I was then with a man running through urban streets at dusk. We were running away from someone, and the streets were packed with people. A man was running after us.
We ran out to the Spit and at it’s end he caught my arm and shoved his knife near my armpit. My companion stopped running and turned to look at me. I twisted and wrenched my arm free before he was able to cut me. I knew that the man was after my companion and not myself, and we took off running.
Themes: Dad
I walked down a long aisle toward the back of the building, and in a dark room there I found my father in a passionate embrace with my aunt, Judy. I was furious but my dad ran away, so I yelled at Aunt Judy. I asked her what she was thinking, why she would do this with my dad, to my family. I cornered her, and she just stood in front of me.
I went to work and found Karen sitting at my desk trying to type a letter. She was frustrated and got up, instructing me to finish and present the letter for her. She left the office as I sat at my computer; the letter was her confession and apology for sleeping with the boss.
I finished the letter and had to read it to the class. I had brought Lacey into the office with me, and as I printed the letter she ran off. I went out after her, and called her name just before she ran across the street.
Themes: Dad
I was walking down East Road in Homer when I saw a brand new Dodge Magnum parked just off the right side of, pointed away from, the road. There was a sign in the side window that read “$6000.” I walked up to the passenger side and peered through the window. The car looked like it had been barely driven, and I wondered why it wasn’t on a new car lot.
I crossed the street and talked with the car’s owner, a grizzly looking rotund man. There was something weird about him and the car, but I knew it was a great deal.
He told me the price was extremely low because he lost his keys. He handed me foot-long piece of straw (hay), and I asked what I was supposed to do with it. He said that I was to push it between the top of the window and the frame to unlock the door; if I could successfully unlock the car then he would sell it to me for $6000.
I turned back toward the car and wished I had a slim jim. I wondered how much I would be able to sell the car for; it would surely be more than $6000. I crossed the street and approached the car from the driver’s side when I noticed the window was rolled down two inches and a piece of string was tied around the manual lock.
I knew that if the man found out someone had gotten here before me I wouldn’t get the car. I squeezed my hand through the opening and pulled up on the string, unlocking the door.
Inside the car looked and felt more like a tiny motorhome. There were wooden cabinets above the seats and a large counter between the seats and the windshield. I sat in the passengers seat, dad in the drivers seat, B and Des in the back seat. We opened every cabinet and felt every surface.
We drove off towards the ocean, driving off road through the mud as much as possible. All of a sudden my dad said, “Watch this,” and pointed the car at the cliffs on the right. We sailed off the road and were falling through empty air.
Hills rolled past us, hills that I thought we would crash into at any moment. I screamed but B and Des in the back laughed; they thought it was a great and fun idea. I held my breath as I waited for impact.
We passed over three hill tops when Dad reached his hand out his window fourth hill top, which slowed our descent but also sent the car into a spin. I had no idea how we landed safely.
I sat in the car shaking for some time while everyone got out and went into the restaurant. I finally went inside and found every woman in the restaurant fawning over Des. B and I pulled him away so we could get going, and I asked B what was going on. He tossed me a folded napkin and said, “This.”
I unfolded the napkin and saw a drawing of a penis and a number, presumably drawn by Des to explain to a woman how well endowed he was. The number was so large that I knew he was lying.
B and I agreed to drive Jason through town to pick up his truck. I drove my car and Jason went with B in B’s truck, following me.
I did not know exactly where Jason’s truck was, but knew that it was somewhere downtown. I pulled past a parking lot, backed up, and found a parking spot. The parking lot was deserted but for my car and there was no other traffic.
I got out of my car and could not see B’s truck anywhere. I walked down the street the way I had come looking for B and Jason. I thought I saw our truck turn a corner at the end of a cross street and started after them.
I turned the corner, and turned again at the next block. This street was in the middle of Autumn even though it should have been the middle of Summer.
All of the leaves were turning colors and falling to the ground, and many of the trees had either fallen into the street or were hanging extremely low. I had to duck to go under most of them. As I walked by Bob’s house I knew that he and his sin were the cause of the season change.
I walked through the trees by my grandparents’ home. I walked by my parents’ old house and saw dresses, my and Melissa’s old dresses, still strung up on the laundry line. I knew all of the clothes had been hanging there for years, since my parents had moved, and wondered if anyone would come back to this abandoned home and remove all of our belongings.
I walked up the trail we had used to get to the school bus and emerged at the bottom of my mother’s lawn. I walked into the basement door, up the stairs, and found my mom in the kitchen.
I went to her, crying, and told her how B had left me behind, hadn’t even waited for me to catch up. I was distraught and could hardly catch my breath from the giant sobs. I felt very angry and betrayed.
My mom explained that it wasn’t purposeful, and that he would be back. I could tell that she knew where he had gone, but she wouldn’t tell me.
I saw him drive up the road in a dark blue van and pulled into my mom’s parking spot. He grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down. He appeared very laid back and was not concerned about losing me. I yelled at him for leaving me behind, and he looked right into my eyes for the first time since he arrived and said, “It isn’t every day that your father kills someone.”
He and my mom knew what he meant by this, and assumed that I knew as well. I was furious that they wouldn’t explain. I yelled incoherently through my sobs. I knew that my anger was not penetrating his nonchalance, so I flipped him off and walked away.
Themes: B, Dad, Left Behind, Mom
My parents and I were standing in Melissa’s old bedroom talking when we heard sirens in the distance. The sirens got louder and louder, closer and closer, until I could see lights flashing outside Melissa’s curtained windows.
I knew that the fire trucks were in our parking lot, and wondered how Lacey was doing with the sirens. She was downstairs sleeping in my old room under the blankets, and I heard her start to whine and howl. I called her name and she ran to me. I covered her ears with my hands trying to block out some of the painful sound.
My parents and I walked outside towards the trucks, who had parked in front of my dad’s shop. Two firemen were inspecting the 500 gallon gasoline tanks.
They explained to me that the hoses were clogged and they needed to fix it immediately. They squeezed the handle to clear the hose of its blockage and asked me to do the other hose.
We pointed the hoses into the weeds across the parking lot, long powerful streams of clear liquid. I worried about getting the gasoline in my mother’s garden, knowing that her garden lay just bejond that patch of weeds.
I looked at my mother and she furrowed her brow, probably worried about her garden as well. The liquid streaming out of the hoses turned into a bronze color, more like gasoline should look. We let go of the handles and turned the hoses back towards our feet.
I was acting in a play and B’s dad was acting as my father. We were on stage performing and I had forgotten all of my lines for one crucial scene. I made most of my lines up and got off stage as fast as possible.
The other actors were slightly panicked and one whispered to me that B’s dad really needed to have the item I was supposed to give him during that scene.
I went back on stage and, in character, told him that I had forgotten to give something to him; I still couldn’t remember any of my lines. Without the item, the play couldn’t have continued.
Themes: Dad
I sat in a staff meeting discussing what to do with a large mound of manure. The boss said that he lined up a volunteer to haul it away for us, but another staff member said that would be a little drastic: she could use most of it in her garden. I thought that was a great idea and wanted some for my small flower boxes.
I stood over the mound, shoveling it into small cardboard boxes with a tiny shovel. There were large shading trees around me. Because my shovel was so small, it was taking a very long time to fill one box. A man came to help me, and I stepped away for a break.
Sitting on the left of my father, I shoved my fork into his thigh. he flinched from the pain, and I removed my hand from the fork. He told me to keep going.
I shoved the fork in further at an angle and ripped out a chunk of his muscle. I pierced his skin again and then removed the fork tines. He said that if we were going to finish this, it needed to be now, but make it quick. The time for this was slipping away.
Themes: Dad
I stood naked in the middle of a room. My dad came up behind me and slipped his arms around my waist in a warm embrace. I felt very content, happy, and secure.
He moved his arms up and squished my breasts as far up as they would go; I was scared and angry. He wouldn’t let go of me even though I screamed and struggled. He grabbed my breasts forcibly, and I hated him.
I was then B lying in bed; I was not yet married. Then dad stormed into my room and yelled at me for touching and violating his daughter. I followed him into the hallway knowing that he was the one that violated her, not me.
He shoved her into the room across the hallway from my room and placed a heavy chest of drawers in front of the door to keep her locked in. I heard her sobbing behind the closed door.
I was in the passenger’s seat of a moving vehicle. The driver (I never saw his/her face) told me that my dad had two other brothers that I didn’t know about. I asked why I had never heard of them, and this person told me that my grandmother had cheated on my grandfather for many years. It was a long time ago, and she wanted to hide her sin.
Themes: Dad
I was on my dad’s fishing boat with him and my mom when a very long, skinny boat comes up beside us and ties up to us. A woman stepped off the skinny boat onto our deck and talks to Dad. Mom and I were in the cabin looking through the window of the door at them.
The woman, short and dirty—she hadn’t had a shower in a few weeks—handed my father some money, and he gave her a plastic bag. I knew that he just sold her drugs right in front of us.
I rushed onto deck and yell at him for being a drug dealer. I told him that he was a horrid person and how much I hated him. He blew up and threatened me with physical harm; I knew he would hurt me. I thought about calling the Coast Guard, but realize that he would hear me trying to use the radio. I realized that we were stranded on the ocean with him and there was no way to get help.
Themes: Dad
Dad was yelling at me, coming towards me forcefully to grab me. I was in my parents’ bedroom, and my mom was lying in bed. I asked for her to help me, but she didn’t move. Dad cornered me and I sunk to the floor between the edge of the bed and the wall.
He grabbed my arms and pushed me up against a wall on the other side of the bedroom - I knew the headboard of their bed was right on the other side. I wanted to scream, but couldn’t. I needed help. I became so angry with him that I spit curse words at him, which only made him angrier.
Melissa is sitting on the edge of the couch telling Mom, Dad, and I about how she accepted Jesus as her Savior. She had gone to a local Lutheran church youth group. Hearing that, Dad begins yelling at her for going to a Lutheran church. I know that he is angry her salvation didn’t happen at his church, didn’t happen his way. I wanted to tell him to shut up and just be happy for her, but I didn’t say anything.
It was close to the end of the world - buildings were going up in flames, the sky was an eerie dark mustard color, and very few people were still alive.
My dad, Melissa, and I were all that was left of our family. We took two puppies and went to the community disaster center at the church. I decided that we needed to claim a sunday school room before they all get filled up.
I walked down the hallway and checked out each one, but the only one available was at the end of the hallway across from the surprisingly full nursery. I didn’t want that room because, being at the end farthest from the main section of the church, felt too exposed. Instead, I figured I could snag the nursery when the people come to pick up their kids.
We piled all of our bags and food and other possessions in the foyer of the church. Melissa and I sat down on top of our clothes and coddled the two puppies who were being very obedient and not running away.
We watched alien prisoners of the enemy aliens file into the church for safety. They were refugees, and were steel gray in color. The enemy aliens bomb the end of the church and a large fire erupts - I was then very glad I chose to not take the empty room on the end of the hallway.
Melissa, Damon, Bridger, and I managed to get out of the church and ran to a cabin back in the woods a ways. We felt very safe, but we had no supplies and needed milk. I mentioned that I had milk in my refrigerator back at my apartment. I told the group that I didn’t know how long the power had been off, but the door hadn’t been opened since so it should still be pretty cool inside. I continued that if the milk was bad, I had some powdered milk under the counter that just needs mixed with water.
We were then crawling down the shoulder of a wide dirt road. There were a lot of abandoned cars parked along the edge, and we crawled behind them. As aliens marched up and down the center of the road, we prayed that they would remain oblivious to us.
Themes: Aliens, Dad, End of the World, Melissa
I lived with my father on an active submarine. He was a short, skinny scientist. The submarine was his personal one, and as a consequence we were the only people on board.
I went to my room to prepare for bed and an intruder barged in with intentions to kidnap me. I escaped out a small portal on the other side of the room and slid down a huge, curvy slide towards my father’s laboratory.
My father loved me very much, and was very protective of me. As I slid down the slide, with the intruder close behind, laser beams shot from the walls and hit the would-be kidnapper. I was proud that my father had set up the laser system in case someone wanted to harm me.
Themes: Dad
I was dressed like an Amish girl. My dad grabbed my arms and was talking to me. I didn’t want him to, so I kneed him in the crotch - but it didn’t hurt him.
My mom told me to listen to him. I cried.
My family was at Costco in Anchorage buying groceries. Mom was relatively young and was wearing a white dress and bonnet from the late 1800s; she was also holding a newborn baby. Along one side of the warehouse was a long string of train cars. I walked up and down them with my dad. When we went around to the other side of the cars, we saw that “$1,000” had been painted in white on one of the cars.
My dad thought that one thousand dollars was a great deal for 6 train cars. The bagger tried to put them into a metal grocery cart while we paid for them, but she couldn’t make them fit. She could get two into the basket, but no more.
Dad decided to come back for them at a later date and so we went to the car to leave. I frantically looked around for Mom because she wasn’t in the car with us. When I asked Dad to wait for Mom, he told me that we were leaving her at Costco. This made me very angry with my dad.
Back at home, I went out onto the dirt road and hitched a ride. I intended to go back to Anchorage to get my mom. The ride I hitched was with some men in an RV. Not far up the road they pushed me out of the back door; I walked home.
I stopped by our neighbor’s and found that my Mom was hiding in their basement sewing. I was very happy to have her back near home.
Dad and I pulled into our driveway in his truck and parked in front of the house. I could see smoke through mom and dads bedroom window. I ran inside and asked mom if there is a fire. She said no, but told me I could check if I wanted. I opened the door to their bedroom and saw a naked person. I hurriedly shut the door and then, realizing it was Melissa who was naked, went back into my parents’ bedroom.
There were three teen couples lying on the bed and under the covers; all of the boys were wearing clothes and one of the girls was naked. I tell them in a rushed manner that they need to get their clothes on ASAP because my parents were out in the hallway. The naked girl was hunched down trying to cover her nakedness.
The girl on the left, Melissa, and the one on the right threw back the covers revealing they were naked from the waist down. I kept telling them to hurry up and get dressed. Only then did I notice that the room was filled with marijuana smoke.
Later, the boys had spread through the house and tried to disguise that they were masturbating. The three that were in the bedroom with the girls sat on the couch watching a movie and rubbed their crotches; they were hardly subtle. One boy kept running from upstairs to downstairs as if he couldn’t keep himself from masturbating yet was ashamed to do it in my parents’ house.
The last teen was playing electric guitar. He was really good. But after a while I realized that he, too, was masturbating but hid it quite well with the strumming of his guitar.
I was in my parents’ basement. My mom was standing on a stepladder next to the pool table fixing the overhead light. Dad stood next to her watching what she was doing. I was standing in the living room area watching both of them.
I utter ‘asshole’ under my breath; my dad looks sharply at me and asks accusingly what I just said. I told him that I called him an asshole. I was afraid that he would come over to me and hit me. Before he is able to react to me, Mom called his attention to the light and asked him a question. He told her something, then looked down and muttered ‘wench.’
Furious at what he just called my mom, I ran over to him and yelled into his ear as loud as I could. I screamed obscenities at him, knowing that it would probably end with him hitting me. But I felt a giant need to stick up for my mom.
B and I walk upstream along the bank of a river and come to a tiny town. All of the buildings were on pilings because the river had been known to flood. We stopped into a few gift shops but bought nothing.
A person outside handed us each a thick Oreo wafer. I broke mine apart and found that inside the wafer was a bright yellow rubber duck. It was only two inches big. I noticed there was a very large gathering of people at the river - surely larger than the population of this village.
Each person had a small rubber duck just like mine. We tossed all of our ducks into the river. We watched them float downstream a bit and then jumped in after them to help them along.
Some people grabbed handfuls of ducks and dipped them into buckets of salt to help keep them afloat.
B and I were then inside my father’s boat while my father spun it around very fast. B was sitting near the center and I was standing; I was having a hard time keeping my balance and quickly became ill. My father told me to look at the central pivot point of the floor so I wouldn’t get sick. It didn’t help any and I wanted to jump off.
I was fairly young and was with my dad and brothers on the beach. All of a sudden a bear comes running down the shoreline directly for us on two legs; it is holding two of its paws to its midsection and is losing a lot of blood. It turns for my dad and chases him into what was either a large ditch or small canal. My dad jumps over the ditch/canal and then we are sitting at my parents’ dining room table.
Themes: Dad
I was in my parents’ house. Hundreds of pictures of Melissa covered the counter in the kitchen. I started down the stairs to the basement and saw my entire family having a yelling match in the stairwell. I told dad to get over himself and quit being a jerk. All I wanted to do was go downstairs.
I walked into a large restaurant. I was all dressed up, but the tables were nothing near fancy. They were long wooden ones with the fold-up legs, and the room looked like the basement of my church in Homer.
I wove a path between tables to find an empty one. I sat down, pulled out a pad of paper, and leaned over to write. A new coworker, Vicki, sat down on my right without asking if the seat was taken. I ignored her in hopes she would go away - I wanted to be alone. But she sat in silence.
On my left I was aware of some sort of projector screen on the wall behind me. There was going to be a presentation, but it had not yet started.
I noticed that my father was sitting a few tables behind me and to my right, but my mother was not in the room. He was talking with some people and being his boisterous self. I hoped he wouldn’t spot me and come say hi.
A waiter served her appetizers. On her plate was a pile of cherries and some chicken strips. She offered me a cherry, but I shook my head no.
I saw my grandparents walk around some tables and sit down beside my father. I kept looking over my shoulder at their table, hoping they were still engaged with the people at their table. And I desperately wanted Vicki to move.
Themes: Dad
I was in a small blue gray car with Dad and Melissa; someone else was driving. We were on our way to bring me to college. At the top of our driveway, we saw B’s family lounging in my grandparent’s lawn. We stopped and I got out to invite them along. His dad and two sisters agreed to come along.
Getting everyone in the car was quite a hassle: we had 7 people in a car that only has 5 seats. We decide that someone could fit behind the back seat; Melissa was volunteered, and we dropped her back there.
Jayme sat in the front passenger’s seat. In the back seat, left to right, was my father, me, Sarah, and Dick. Every time I sat back, Dad would poke or pinch me on the hip in such a way that it tickled and hurt at the same time. This made me scoot my hips away from him and the back of the seat while my shoulders stayed put.
I snapped at him to stop it, but he wouldn’t. Every time I scooted forward, I made the already scrunched back seat more uncomfortable for everyone. I became livid at him and no longer wanted to sit next to him. I did not feel safe.
The entire extended family was at my parents’ house for dinner. I was still young enough to be living at home. We were all in my parents’ basement - it was set up just like it was when the family was still living there. I was sprawled out in my favorite orange chair and had it tilted far forward. Dad and grandpa decided to pray over the meal; they stood up to my right by dads chair and faced out the windows. Dad glared at me; he wanted me to stand, but I didn’t want to.
During prayer I rocked the chair back and forth as quietly as I could, but the chair ended up hitting the wall pretty loudly. I tried hopping the recliner forward to get it away from the wall - this made a much louder noise.
After prayer, dad was mad at me. I turned to him in the middle of the living room and began yelling at him. I told him every one of his faults and how much I despised him. I vented for quite a while.
Later, I found him in the unfinished upstairs. The walls, ceilings, and floors were still covered in plywood. He was standing in the middle of what would become the living room and was tinkering with some tool. I went up to him as he was standing up straight. I leaned in close to his face and whispered through firmly clenched teeth, “I hate you.” I turned and walked into what was my and Melissa’s room.
Inside the room, it was set up as it currently is: empty but for a few boxes of Melissa’s stuff and her cold waterbed. I am no longer young, but am my current age; I am crying. Standing on the side of the bed by the door, I opened my bag that was sitting on top of her bed and start stuffing items into it. I desperately want to leave the house and get away from my father. I undress to put on some cleaner clothes.
While I am naked, my father pounds on the door. Now standing by the side of the bed by the wall and looking at the door, I grab a sheet to cover myself and then yell, “I’m naked!” The knocking stops and I relax a bit. But then he opens the door and comes in despite my warning. I think that I should have locked the door (which is odd because that door has never had a lock).
He decides that ‘we need to talk about this’ and is determined to not leave until it is ‘all straightened out.’ I yell at him to leave my room and let me finish getting dressed. I feel very vulnerable and scared of what he is going to do to me. He steps toward me looking at the sheet I am holding over me.
I yell for my mom to come help. I have to yell loudly so she can hear me: she is downstairs. She comes upstairs and stands between my dad and me, not taking her eyes off of him. She says nothing and he leaves the room.
I am crying uncontrollably; all I want is for B to come take me away from there.
Now dressed, my mom and I walk into the upstairs entryway. The upstairs now looks completely finished: as it is today. My dad is standing by the door with his arms crossed: he is not going to let me leave without interacting with him. My mom glares at him and he goes downstairs.
B drives into the parking lot and I run to meet him. I give him a big and long hug. We get into the car and drive out of the parking lot. Part way down the road we are riding a snow machine and I am driving. B instructs me to drive into the ditch and up a small embankment in order to miss something on the road that we shouldn’t drive over. He then wants me to jerk the handlebars in the opposite direction than the one we want to go. His instructions don’t make any sense to me, but I try it.
This scene replays with different outcomes. My mind is trying to figure out what would happen if I were to actually do what B instructed. I wake up before my mind can come to a conclusion.
My mother and I were sitting on the front bench seat in her old red suburban. She was sitting in the passengers seat, and I on the left in what would be the driver’s seat if the steering wheel had been there: it wasn’t. I knew we were in a car because there were visors attached to the ceiling. Attached to my visor were three of my black hair claws. I immediately remembered that I had left them in mom’s car.
I was turned slightly towards my mom and she towards me. I asked her how her dog was doing, and mom told me that she (the dog) had walked back to the car and sat there, still as a statue, for two hours straight. While she told me this I envisioned the white fluffy poodle mix walking very slowly towards mom’s Yukon and sitting in the back.
I looked at the visor and saw that my hair claws were holding pieces of paper to the visor. I removed them, unfolded them as they were all folded many times, and found that they were checks written out to me.
I was very concerned at the dog’s behavior, and asked mom what had happened. She told me that dad had punched her in the head, on her scull. I was furious; I had known that he had hit the dog in the past, but this time he seriously injured her. I stared forward cursing him quite loudly. I yelled swear words at the dashboard.
I turned to mom and pleaded her to let me take the dog. I feared that if I didn’t do something, dad would kill the dog the next time he abused her. But mom refused. I kept asking; she kept refusing.
I was then lying on the seat under a heavy wool blanked with my back towards my mom. I quickly turned over and told mom that I could buy the dog. I showed her my checks as proof that I had the money. I was crying for this small dog. I told her that dad didn’t have to know that I knew about him hitting her, just that I wanted to buy her. Mom shook her head and told me that I couldn’t take the dog. She said that in a few years I wouldn’t have to deal with dad and therefore shouldn’t make it difficult for the rest of them who did have to deal with him once I was gone.
I felt furious and helpless. I awoke sobbing.
My father and I were driving through an urban street late at night. He was driving and I was in the passenger’s seat gawking at all the tall buildings. We were the only car on the road and were going home from some event. We made a stop at Sam’s, a local membership warehouse, to get a few items. Standing in the checkout line as my dad is buying tube socks and Swiss cheese, I glance to my left and see Desultory, an online friend whom I have never met, at another checker. He has two carts loaded down with items to buy. He looks up and recognizes me, but there is no communication between us. My father’s tube socks were taking an inordinate amount of time to process.
I was at my parents’ house in their basement in which we used to live. My dog was having a great time playing with my parents’ dogs. My oldest brother and his wife came down the stairs, as if they were coming for dinner. The entire family was in the basement sitting around the edges of the basement living room. This large of a family reunion made me feel as if it were a very special holiday or birthday. I was standing in one corner of the living room with my oldest brother sitting on the couch to my immediate right and my husband sitting near the stove in a chair to my immediate left.
All of a sudden my dad was ticking me so ferociously that he pushed me into the corner of the room. I struggled and tried to get away, but he overpowered me. He grabbed both of my breasts with one hand and held me there in the corner. I felt sexually violated and very angry. I was so furious that I was yelling at him to let me go and stop tickling me. But my attempts of escape were futile and, knowing this, I was crying. I looked to my right and my left, seeing my brother and husband and then the rest of my family continue on with conversation as if everything were normal. I wondered why no one was helping me when I was being so obviously assaulted.
Again demanding that my father let me go, he told me that I wasn’t strong enough to make him. I began to flail, hitting him with about as much strength one has in their grip immediately upon waking. My fists hit his chest but did no harm to him and did not help my situation. He laughed at my weakness. I told him that I could get more strength when I needed it. I looked directly at my husband and saw his large erect penis and knowing that this was my source of strength. It was not a symbol of sexuality, but of strength and power. With my father still holding me in the corner, I began to push him back away from the walls and into the room.
We wanted to go buy some comic books, and Beth wanted to go with us. We had been driving for a few hours before she asked where we were going. B was driving, Beth was in the passengers seat, and I was in the back. He looked over at Beth and casually said, “Anchorage.” She wasn’t terribly chocked that we were headed out of town instead of going to the local comic shop. It took a very long time to drive to anchorage due to construction. We saw Melissa on the road, and she gave us a ride the rest of the way into anchorage.
She dropped B and I off at my parent’s place then drove on into town in her little car. Someone I don’t know asked dad accusingly why he let his daughter drive in the city alone. Dad didn’t see a problem with it. My parents had a lot of dogs, all of which I hadn’t seen before. I went into Melissa’s room and saw my dog it was a little, hyper thing, running all over Melissa’s bed, unable to sit still. I was trying to coax it up close to me, but at that time Melissa drove into the yard, and a larger dog came into the room and started barking, too much commotion for the little dog.
Then B and I were talking with my parents and Melissa about our apartment hunt. Melissa didn’t understand the term ‘unfurnished,’ so I had to explain it to her and listed for her the furniture we own. She asked if we had a headboard; I told her no.
I was then naked but for my panties, leaning over the back of the couch in the living room trying to remember someone’s name. But I couldn’t. There was a shower stall/bath tub right behind me, and I stepped in. I stood with my back to the faucet and my hair under the water for some time with my eyes closed.
After thoroughly soaking my hair, I opened my eyes and saw my father standing at the other end of the tub. I didn’t find this strange or wrong at all. He was dressed in black pants and a black shirt. I asked him why he was still dressed (he was going to take a shower, after all) and he said that he didn’t want to undress in front of everyone in the living room. It made sense to me. I grabbed a towel off the rack yet stayed in the shower stall.
After I finished drying my face, I saw that my mom was now standing in the tub fully clothed. She was holding a dishtowel and was rubbing my fathers nipples uncertainly. I noticed that her nails were perfectly manicured. He turned his head to her and reached for her hands tenderly. I felt awkward seeing this. Not embarrassed for what they were doing, but awkward in the sense that they should be alone. I brought the towel back up to my face, not wanting them to know I saw anything. I then realize that I had showered with my glasses on and they were covered with water drops. I took them off.