Dream

I have a spacecraft, it is small and built to fit only one person. The planet I land on is small, not much larger than The Little Prince's Planet. It is lovely. It is perfect. It can fit about 50 people comfortably, 100 if we want to be a China or an India, but I don't want to overuse our resources so I settle on 40.

I will interview the people who come to the planet to see if they are compassionate and caring, to see if they believe in the connection between all living things and honor that connection. Because I want our planet to be a happy one, one where we can live in peace and respect all the living things that were here before us, and each other. Most of the people who come to the planet fail my interview and so I ask them to leave. If they decline, I chase them away with a stick. I am small, but quite ferocious with a stick.

A few I ask to stay. But I am tired, because I have been up for weeks conducting interviews and making plans for the planet and how we will coexist on it. I haven't slept in maybe a month, so one of the new recruits, a friend of a friend tells me to sleep. He says he'll manage while I rest. And so I sleep. I dream of how happy we'll all be on our beautiful planet.

When I wake up, the planet has been overtaken by a group of frat boys. I recognize these boys - they are the same boys who once walked up and down the main street in Rosarito with beer cans in their hands, heckling the locals. They are laughing and drunk and ripping things up, lighting bonfires and getting into fights.

I tell them to leave, I tell them they're not welcome here. But there are so many of them and only one of me. And I am small. I can't chase 30 people away with a stick. And they are big. They laugh at me. There is nothing I can do. They are here now, and they are the majority. They don't understand anything about this planet. They don't see how special it is.

There is nothing I can do. There is nothing anyone can do. In one fell swoop, it is ruined, my vision for this planet, this beautiful world that could have been. If only I hadn't slept. I have let everyone down. I have let this lovely little planet down.

I get down on the ground in a fetal position and I cry. I can't stop crying. I cry because I am so sorry and so tired and so defeated and so sad.

When I wake up, I can't stop crying. I can't go back to sleep. I get up to write everything out, but I can't because I can't stop crying.

During the day, it is fine, for the most part, but moments like this, in the middle of the night, when you can't go back to sleep and you can't stop crying, it all feels so acute. As though it is all wrong, all ruined. And you don't know how to ever make it right again.