I Got Lost Again
It had been spelled out to me in a lucid dream. P-O-R-T-L-A-N-D. Portland. The morning after I’d surmised that the dream was referring to Portland, Oregon, one of the crown jewel cities of the great northwest section of these United States. An abiding belief in the presence of the omnipresent God and mental illness spurred me toward a fateful choice: I was going to chase my dream.
So I boarded an Amtrak train bound for Portland.
I disembarked from the train in Portland, Oregon, without a solid plan, a deliberate choice as I didn’t want any of my enemies — practically everyone that I knew in my hometown — or family knowing where I was headed. I bounced around assorted hotels and motel complexes in order to throw everyone off the scent, before arriving at the very last motel accommodation.
The next few days and nights were spent holed up in the confines of my motel room, with the intense summer heat and musk from my unwashed body pervading the space for the entirety of the day, creating a haze; the heat persisted beyond the time when the sun dipped beneath the horizon.
At night I’d wait for the light of the moon to spill through the motel window. With my mind on fire, I approached the spot on the wall where the moonlight would eventually land and halt right in its path. I turned to that very spot on the wall. There was the shadow of the…
