a transient and a weasel

[Commonlands]

(I fell asleep for about 15 minutes at work today and this was what I dreamt. I thought it made for a somewhat interesting narrative so I jotted it down. I know it's terrible but here it is anyway. )

As we strolled aimlessly down the sidewalk, Rachel produced a pack of cigarettes and withdrew one with the natural ease of a veteran smoker. This surprised me greatly because she is pretty much still attached to the umbilical cord of her severely religious mother, who maintains such a presence in Rachel’s life that even this brief walk through the park with just the two of us was a rarity. I bummed one off of her while she still had the pack out. I am strictly a non-smoker except of other people’s cigarettes.

At the same time, we passed a loitering transient who observed Rachel’s doling out of the smokes and asked for one as well. She refused, thus happily placing me higher in her scorebook than a random hobo, but I felt obliged to give the poor fool at least some pittance so I said to him that he could have the change in my pocket and dropped it into his hand – a considerably better deal since it added up to a lot more than the value of one cigarette, but he was not interested in raw value at that moment and was not pleased by my gesture (although he did keep it). In fact he was strangely annoyed at the implication that he needed money when all he wanted was a smoke. He snarled something derogatory which I do not clearly remember but which infuriated me nonetheless.

I told him what a filthy scumbag I thought he was – using an obscenity-rich derivation of the old saying “beggars can’t be choosers,” and at this he began to follow us in a somewhat menacing fashion. We quickened our pace and the transient quickened his in turn. An inappropriate grin spread across his face which deflated my confidence in the situation and I resorted to my default survival mechanism. I ran, holding Rachel by the arm, dragging her behind me, and I regret to admit that it was not so much for her sake but perhaps more a child-like tendency to seek safety in numbers - reducing her to a human shield of sorts.

The transient began to run as well and in my state of panic, a deeper, more primal aspect of myself took over the controls. With hardly a thought, I snatched up an egg-sized rock from the ground and whipped it at him as hard as I could. What followed was the most deeply satisfying moment of my life as the rock bounced smartly off of his face with sharp crack, decisively halting the pursuit. I did not pause to admire the damage, although I am certain that he was badly hurt.

I continued to run but was no longer dragging Rachel with me, nor was she even present in my mind but luckily she did keep up. There was room in my brain only for my own survival – for escaping the danger (and secondarily for relishing the fantastic pain I had just inflicted upon my foe). All other concerns were immediately purged by this strange encounter and I think Rachel perceived this. She has not been warm toward me since that day, nor, do I think, should she be. In spite of putting up a good appearance at first, I am a weasel and everyone figures it out sooner or later - the sooner the better really. I will never be a provider, a caretaker, a protector, or any of the things a man should be. I will never be a husband, a decent lover, nor a father, and rightly so. I'm in it for me.