mingled dreams

it is nighttime. we are driving. he is there with me.

and unlike in the past, my hands are on the steering wheel.

---

it is summertime. the cool night breeze belies the sweltering rays of an earlier endless afternoon sun. i am with a girl i just met; she is from argentina. we stop at a wal-mart. the fluorescent lampposts scatter their bright lights like wind-blown daffodils on a deserted parking lot. we go inside. i am looking for a pair of shorts. black ones, i want.

what is it like to live in argentina? i ask. i want to buy a bicycle with big handlebars to roam around on in the evenings.

i also hear it's near the beach? i miss the ocean. i hope to live near the coast.

she looks at me. she is quite pretty. brown hair, light skin, deep mauve-colored lips--a love-hate mixing of european colonialism in latin america.

her eyes are serious.

be careful, she warns. the streets are dangerous at night.

i look at her, slightly surprised. covered in a shroud of boundless excitement and adventure, i had overlooked vulnerability, alienation and those one hundred years of solitude.

be careful, she repeats.