Dream

The town is broken into two halves; the first half is dotted with candy-colored Victorians that have been modernized with glass rooms and spiral staircases. They sit atop rolling green hills. In the summer, people come out on their porches and drink mint juleps. The second half of the town was built on a swamp, but people didn't know this when they were building their homes. The houses are sinking into the ground, slow and crooked. Owners feel no incentive to beautify their homes as they do on the other side of town, so the houses are crumbling, all broken windows and rust and chipped paint. People who live in this half of town bemoan their fate. They ended up on this half of the town by chance. And it makes them curse chance, and their lives, and the people who live in candy-colored Victorians on the other side of town.

I am invited to a party on the crumbling side. I don't want to go but I don't remember why. It is an office party. I show up in pajamas. I look at the crumbling structure and realize that I am in Havana. The house is broken but stately. I walk in and remember why I didn't want to come; Oprah Winfrey is hosting this party. She is standing in the foyer, leaning against a marble table. I sort of hate her and think she's false.

"You can't come to a party in your pajamas!" she exclaims in her overly self-righteous James Frey sort of way.

"It's just a dinner," I shrug.

"It's gazpacho!" she says.

"All right," I shrug again and leave.