HOLLISTER

The bird (or is it a plane?) is etched indelibly into the garment, seal of thoughts thunk and approved. I see a stack of them. Stacks of them. Salad bars of “look,” fresh Saturday last.

These are the shirts and pants and skirts of privilege. And those who don them are privied to the Answers On Page 120.

Here, the glossy long board in the corner is partly thematic, partly furniture. It is not used for surfing, however. Never has been. It was built to decorate, not to taunt the dauntless boy with rock salt in the curl of his snarl.

The den of inequities is cozy, comfortable, and oddly familiar. Music blares at bedroom lip-sync level, and the air smells of lilac lollipops.

I could be sleeping.

We have come for inspiration, restoration, esteemation, we sleepwalkers. We stay for the winking flirts scattered high and low, left and right. We leave with our spaghetti straps, scuffed up jeans, and the self-titillation only a slim-fitting golf shirt can deliver.

Suddenly, near the doorway, the faint whiff of buttery pretzels summons my inevitable awake. In a whoosh, I stagger into the bright wide. And the dream peels away…sugar-frosted flakes of despair.