Fates

I find myself having this reoccurring dream. It will plague me for nights at a time and then vanish into the ether just a quick.  I find myself in this very old grocery store.  It’s dark and air is thick with the sent of almost acrid produce.  Much of the layout of the store is like that of my childhood grocery.  Long towering aisles with product descriptions hanging from a board on the ceiling.  The subtle differences are that the color scheme is that of a tri-bar orange and brown of the 60′ and that the place is immense.  The name of the place is Fates Grocery…which although sounding mysterious…it’s not… there is an actual “Fates Grocery” in a town not too far from where I live… maybe a 30 min drive.   Why my mind decided to make a bastardized grocery store in my cortex is beyond me but I thought it poignant to get it down on paper.  Oh..and in my dream… you cant get out of the grocery store…once your in,  you in.

I’ve had this dream for years and each time I venture to the “store” I find myself even more bewildered by it’s existence.   For example, the slush puppy machine.   The slush puppy machine is from the Lake Orion Kmart circa mid-1983.   I know this because my Nana and Pops would get me a cherry slush puppy every time we went to shut my little hyper ass up.   So that machine an I got very acquainted over the years…but here it sits at Fates….not as a reminder of some deep psychosis that I need to resolve…but just because.  Another thing… glass bottles.  All the pop is in those 8 pack glass bottles. Even the Faygo is in those squat tube bottles of the early 80’s.   I keep asking myself why?  Why would someone remember this and keep it locked in your head. But here I am looking around and seeing all the meaningless things occupying my mental hard drive.  Like the fucking nacho cheese bucket.   Kmart used to have this little diner in the back… it was horrible..and there on the stand next to jugs of condiments…was the oozing and bubbling nacho cheese warmer.  Upon opening it up you see that there is a thick crust of cheese that had been left for days.   Why is this in my head?

Why does Fates Grocery exist in my mind?  That is a good question.  I’m pretty good with my dreams..for the most part I have some pretty awesome dreams where I am somewhat keen on whats going on. I am not a total dream-walker-neo- matrix shit…but I know that I’m not in the present reality of boorishness that is my daily life.   So on that note you would think my subconscious is trying to tell me something or maybe my ego or ID is getting a time out.   Over the years I get into that loop where one night…poof… I’m standing near the cheese section…. always the cheese section… this big wheel of cheese on a huge table. It’s always  near Thanksgiving too… cause they have those turkey decorations where you fold out the tail of the turkey like a fan… and they have the cheese all piled up like some wack ass cornucopia spilling out onto crackers.  POOF….there I am. The different smells all wafting into my nostrils all at once….cheese….sweaty moon boots….baked beans….body odor.    And it’s just me…no one else… I’m alone in this huge place and each time I arrive everything is back to the way it was last time.  The closest thing I could figure out is that maybe Fates is like my own private Idaho…my personal emotional purgatory…. my psychotic time out.

But what is going on this time in my life that I need a time out?  I’m finally back to working a decent job…I got a plan…. I’m “adulting” the best I can… and for 3 nights straight I’m back in that fucking store staring at the slush machine waiting for it to give me some prophetic message about my life…and don’t try to get all yogi sensai guru on the mountain about it cause it doesn’t mean anything.   Some people have these super spiritual interactions with their spirit warriors… I got Betty Crocker and Fruity Pebbles in Aisle 3.

FML