Transgression . Sometimes my memories are so clouded, and my dreams so crystal clear, that it is difficult to pinpoint the real in the cream-filled center of the reminiscence. This morning, a very casual reference in the briefest of messages made my head spin with the realization that a moment in time which I had filed under "fantasy" had been shared by another. . I have been witness to group hallucination. That technicolor rooster riding on the hood of the Buick had been something I had decided to keep to myself...until what was left of my peripheral vision told me there was a similar view from the passenger side of the car. I made the two of them tell me what they saw first, let them argue briefly over whether it was a basilisk or a bantam. . This is not that sort of chemically induced warp in the time-space continuum of my life...this is a very disturbing realization that regardless of what I am capable of now, I was indeed capable of that then. And I am also capable of supressing the experience so totally that if you had asked me point blank if I would...if I could...ever hurt her in that way I would undoubtably answer with the most self-righteous of "never"s. . And now I'm left chilled with the thought that there have been other transgressions...although it is the selective forgetting that scares me most of all. If you believe, as I do, in having responsibility for your actions and the repercussions they cause...then you must see how this blocked memory makes me question the stability of my hands on the steering wheel of my life. . I'm sure you understand how disturbed I was by the message...and why it will take me some time to respond. . .

SMQ1996