The Sea-Wave by Rolli Page B

never really realized I was a freak until someone made a camp for it.

Smudge

    I n my dreams I have a wheelchair. Every time. Other kids are playing ring-toss with unicorns and I’m wheeling along, looking for ramp access.
    One time on AM 800 CHAD this dream expert was talking about either lucid or lucent dreams. The idea is you’re dreaming, you realize you’re dreaming, you take control of your dreams. Then you really could if you wanted toss those rings, or eat the mayor, or pretty much anything else you could think of.
    So I tried it. Just before I fell asleep, I told myself I was going to have — I think it was a lucid dream. The trouble is when you’re dreaming, you can’t tell you’re dreaming. So if you’ve got a baby growing on your kneecap, your brain just says: “Yup. As usual.” You’re supposed to insert a clue into your dream before you nod off and when you run into that clue you’ll know you’re asleep. In my dreams I’m usually just quietly reading, so my dream clue was that I’d read the word “smudge,” which is my least favourite word in English and the first word that terrible poets reach for when they’re trying hard to be metaphorical.
    So I kept thinking smudge, smudge, getting sleepier and sleepier, and when I dreamed I was reading I saw the smudge, and had an epiphany. I threw my book down. “I’m dreaming,” I said to myself. “This is all a dream. I’m taking control of my dreams. I’m going . . . to fly.” Flying, just the freeness of it, is probably the ultimate wheeler fantasy.
    I closed my eyes. I focused .
    And then it happened.
    I felt myself rising higher and higher. I got that butterfly feeling. It should have been so amazing.
    But it wasn’t amazing. It was fucking depressing. Because my wheelchair just floated up with me. No matter how hard I rocked or pushed down on my armrests, it stuck to me. And I felt so much sadder and more devastated than I’ve ever felt in my waking life.
    I floated back down to the ground. I picked up my book and I kept on reading.
    Then I woke up.

Drawing

    I should probably draw a picture of the old man. If I get recalled to life again people will want to know who to look for. Or if they just find a skeleton with a memorandum book.
    Drawing isn’t my forte. I draw a lot. A couple months back I drew a picture of a hermit crab out of the encyclopaedia and even though I don’t really like people to see my work I was proud enough, it even looked like a crab, to stick it on the fridge. No one said anything till the Jehovah lady came. My mom lets them in because she can only disappoint family members. They went into the kitchen. I listened from the top of the stairs. The lady must’ve seen the drawing because she said: “Oh how old is your little one?” There was a long pause, then mom said: “Twelve.” Then a longer pause where I imagined the Jehovah lady screwing up her corneas and maybe slanting her head like a puppy. “Oh,” she said, finally. Then she started in about Jehovah. I retracted back into my room like the nearest seashell.
    I guess with my skill a drawing would be worthless. And there’s no point again because the old man looks exactly like da Vinci’s self-portrait.
    It’s uncanny.

Dentistry

    I bit the dentist. If you gouge your hook into my cavity and ask me if it hurts I’m going to bite you. Like the crocodile in Peter Pan . My main virtue may be my strong teeth.
    I get my dentistry done now at the hospital. They put you under and after you can’t have solid food or your lungs will collapse. The doctor illustrated this by drawing eyes on a sandwich bag, then blowing it up and popping it on his chest. At the same time as the pop the nurse jammed the IV in. The last thing I remember is the doctor crumpling the puppet with its head blown open.
    I couldn’t eat for three days. I could