(Image done in Photoshop. Line drawing with a Cintique. All ones and zeroes)



Nina shows up at the coffee shop looking like she slept in her clothes. No coffee for you, I say. I had a rough night, do you mind? she says glowering at me like she doesn't know me. I'd tell her which pier to take a long walk on except that this is her way of saying hello. I remember that we started this banter around the second or third time we started talking at the Haunt, our city's answer to corporate latte' franchises. It's been like every sitcom odd couple ever since. Why I oughta...

She ambles to the counter and makes an attempt to fish out coins from her pocket to buy coffee. She does this work up each time though we all know that Katie at the register will give her a free cup. it's a strange ritual and Katie now doesn't even look as she waves the coins in Nina's hand with a wrinkle of her nose.

I get ready because here it comes. Joe, I had this dream... Right on cue. I am so fascinated with this girl and her alleged "dreams." These special phases in her sleep where she says she can walk around this "place" awake. She has these outlandish run-on recountings of grand adventures full of creatures and a wierd city of some sort and a horned pest she calls, Bandy Kerl. He's a pal or a warden. She says it terrifies her when she starts to choke and this Bandy just stands there smiling. I listen to the tales and nod my head, my eyebrows pitched high with incredulity. I think that she uses it as an escape valve, a way to make the confusion in her life less so.

I met this, guy, see. He had these plans. Blue prints for a jet pack. A jet pack, can you believe it? I mean, there were rolls and rolls of it and he tells me that he built it a long time ago...

I listen each time but I gotta get back to work, Katie just cocked her head for me to git. So, he straps the thing on my back, it's heavy, and he says that it kicks while in flight because the fuel is not very good yet and...

Hey, wait here comes the good part. He says he built it for me! Can you believe it?


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Excerpt from the journals of Jose San Carlos