Nightmare

We are standing together in a room, a veritable sea of weak-wristed bastards, sipping their wine spritzers, smiling and exchanging their cards. We walk around, introducing ourselves, engaging in pithy conversation, taking notes about possible avenues for future backstabbing.

And I am just the right height in my heels. They're killing me but I'm still shorter than him. And I have a wisp of hair hanging down over my left eye, and I hope no one notices because this is not the time or place to be fixing your hair. Everything he says is crap, but I smile and nod. I know when to keep my mouth shut and I'm damn good at it.

"Evil only happens when good people say nothing," a voice whispers in my ear, and then it is gone.

And I'm shivering in my cashmere, hoping that when I touch people's hands they won't notice the calluses on my hands, my ugly chipped fingernails, because in spite of this whole charade I'm still a working-class fuck. Hoping that they will notice instead my necklace, I'm pretty in silver, 'cause gold is garish.

And here beside him I am a pretty trophy, the feisty one he tamed. I do not exist. And I am woman as sign, woman as object and a thousand feminist discourses cross my mind. And one by one I shut them up.

And he has forgotten I'm there, though I'm still handcuffed to his elbow. And as I looked around, those lecherous old bastards ceased their backstabbing and began to close in on me, and I said the only words I said all evening right then, a resounding

fuck you.

And that's where I woke up. It scares me when my dreams actually start to make sense. All morning I've had these lyrics running through my head:

It's giving me a headache
and my breathing's just a mistake
and my head's on fire, my head's on fire...