Olive Branches Don't Grow On Trees

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  The drive back to Jersey was short, but seemed long on this particular night. Silvia was especially upset by having to spend her last four dollars on the bridge toll and by missing her exit because of her preoccupation with her anger at Cosmo. She was beginning to think that Frank was right about her brother. He was a failure and would never amount to much of anything. Yet, she knew that her brother’s prediction about her life was true-- that she would find something wrong with Portland, move away from there, and probably be forced to move back in with her father for lack of money. He crushed the fantasy she had been living on, and in doing so, crushed her spirit. The combination of feeling depressed and angry made her mind like a blank slate, but not the kind of blank slate that is cultivated from years of practicing meditation. Rather, it was a dirty, worn down, gray slate that nothing good could come in or out of.

  When she got to the house, she went straight into her room, closed the door and collapsed on the bed face down and still fully dressed. She had about seven hours of light sleep filled with a series of vivid dreams that played in her head like a reel of short horror films. She couldn’t remember any coherent plot lines in her dreams, but she did recall that she was being chased by some monster that looked to be made out of clay and had a head like a giant turnip. She distinctly recalled a feeling of entrapment as she ran from the monster. No matter which way she turned or how fast she ran, she couldn’t get away. The only way out was to wake up, and so finally she screamed herself awake.