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downtown area of the city and find a city dump where I toss all twelve garbage bags over the fence.
I drive back home, and to my surprise there are as many garbage bags in the living room as there
were when I left, so it must be working. I take the remaining bags to the city dump and toss them
over the fence, and then when I return home I find that I cannot open the door.

As I continue to try to open the door I feel something pushing back towards me until the door
finally breaks and a mess of garbage bags come flowing through. My laugh becomes a bit more
angry.

I kick one of the bags out of frustration, and then pick it up to take out to my car. After my car is
filled with garbage bags, I start the engine, but the car won't accelerate. The car just sits there,
parked, but running. I take one of the garbage bags out and decide to walk to the transfer station
instead. Maybe I might see one of those garbage men and they might be able to help me with this
problem.

I'm halfway there, walking across the city with this bag over my shoulder when the bottom
completely rips open and the contents fall out. A mess of black and white notebooks. As I stare
down at the composition notebooks, my knees begin to feel weak and I can stand no longer. I find
a bench and sit down.

As I sit, reflecting on the path I have avoided, I see a familiar face. It's a man who lives on the first
floor of my apartment building. Tall, skinny, middle aged white male who doesn't seem to notice
the people around him. I have walked by him many times in the building but he has never
acknowledged me. In some ways I am the same.

The first-floor man walks up to me and hands me a box of matches, and he tells me that I have to
destroy it before it destroys me completely, because the next time I might not be so fortunate, and
then he walks away. I look back at the mess of black and white, and I go to kneel before it, but I
can't find the courage to set it on fire. If I'm not willing to destroy my problems, then I will have to
carry the burdens where ever I may go. I cannot just simply pass them on to someone else for them
to handle.

The dream ironically reminds me of the story about a man who constantly had nightmares for
dreams when he slept. One day he visits a church in Africa at the request of a stranger, and he
realizes that his dreams are not actually dreams, but memories of horrible things he'd done in the
past. He hadn't really slept for years, not until he realized what he was carrying. In the same
distorted context, the story reminds me about a quote that implies that "dreams are the answers to
questions we don't yet know how to ask."

Chapter 37:
IN BETWEEN THE STORIES

Tao is in my kitchen complaining about how I have no good cereals. He is here often unless he is
away on a trip or something, and he is the one reason why I would move out of this apartment
building. Maybe I would find the courage to live in my parents' home, the one they left me. I guess
I don't want to move now because of Lynne. Maybe because of her kids, too. David, he could
probably care less if I moved away, but there is a feeling that I get when I make Sarah laugh or