Sleeping at the End of the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (September 2008)

When your computer goes to sleep it randomly displays pictures from your photo albums as a screen saver. You realize that your computer is dreaming; further, that your computer is dreaming that it is you, from fragments of birthdays and trips to EPCOT with your family.

***

You dream you’re stuck at the bottom of a pit, like in Silence of the Lambs. You come across your father’s stash of pornography, only it’s really weird, like babies with shoes and stuff and you want to get out, but you can’t.

At the top of the pit stands Tori Amos. And she just laughs at you, looking down at you from the edge of the pit.

Then she strokes her enormous 18-inch penis that looks grey and wrinkled, like an elephant’s tail.

***

You suffer from “restless phantom limb syndrome.” On an internet forum you discover the following herbal remedy: eat an entire GNC container of Creatine Monohydrate (blue raspberry flavor), 100 tablets of Ultra Iron 65, tramadol, oxycodone or methodone, and a sheet of acid while watching DVDs of featuring people without 2 or more limbs: A Zed and Two Noughts, Boxing Helena, and Cremaster 3. You follow this recipe with the addition to a box of Triscuts, some fish food and amputee porn you decide to take in once the acid hits.

The next day you cannot remember if your phantom limbs gave you any trouble. You do discover, however, that you have made yourself an impressive full set of gladiatorial gear from jagged glass in which you slept outdoors in your backyard in an equally spontaneous creation apparently called “the octopus’ garden.”

***

Your Real Doll sleeps on an air bed in the guest room.

***

You buy a white noise generator with inverse phase sound cancellation. The settings are:

• Peaceful waves crashing WITH SEAGULLS.
• Peaceful waves crashing NO SEAGULLS.
• Amazon Rainforest
• Rain
• Bubbling brook
• Stormy Night (THUNDER AND RAIN)
• Crackling Small Fire
• Medium Size Campfire
• Large Fire
• Major Conflagration
• Distant Falling Bombs
• Haunted House (WITH ORGAN AND LAUGHING)
• Gravediggers Working Late
• Man Chuckling to Himself
• Clown Laughing
• Money Being Counted
• Audience Applauding Your Comeback
• Applause, End Credits Bumper for Next Show or Episode
• NPR
• Names of War Dead
• Audio Captchas

***

You dream it’s your funeral and you’re lying in your coffin, only your heart has been replaced by an extremely dark chocolate replica with only 0.00001% sweetener filled with a raspberry coulis and raccoon droppings.

A line of ex girlfriends take the podium to explain how you touched their lives. Some are clearly overcome with grief and comfort each other with hugs and embraces. Then some of them start making out. You know who I’m talking about.

At the reception there is black coffee, spicy hot wings, stale wedge fries, and despite your specific instructions, meatballs in gravy. You want to get up and swap out the stale wedge fries and meatballs for some Dim Sum and Oysters, but you can’t because you’re dead. Things only get worse when KC and the Sunshine Band Plays.

Upon waking, you immediately google “how to write your own will free” and confirm the worrisome fact that KC and the Sunshine Band are still around.

***

Though you are single and have no children you buy a baby monitor and place it in your other guest room.

***

In the morning when you check the pornography you’ve been downloading over night, you fast forward through the whole thing, as though the download window were a dream catcher, to see if you are there.