Whenever I woke up night or day, I'd shuffle through the bright marble foyer of my building and go up the block and around the corner where there was a Bodega that never closed. I'd get two large coffees with cream and thick sugar, each chug the first one in the elevator on the way back up to my apartment, then sip the second one slowly while I watched movies and ate animal crackers and took trazzadone and Ambien and Nembutal until I fell asleep again. I lost track of time
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:19
So I put on a down coat. It wasn't even cold out, but it felt safe to me. And I put on my favorite Ugg slippers. I locked my door for the first time in months, and I pushed myself out into the world. And as I walked, my legs were walking separate from me. It was as if they knew where I needed to go. They pushed me further down the street. I kept on saying, Where am I going? Where am I going?
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 0:37
I wasn't sure where I was going. I could feel the wind sharp on my skin. I don't know how long I was walking before I noticed a woman from afar. Her hair was was bright red, wild, and she was wearing a large coat, slightly torn leopard print. Immediately I felt drawn to her. Yet for some reason I I also questioned if she was even real, if maybe she was a figment of my imagination
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:04
I walked up to her and then quickly walked past the second our eyes met. Then I turned around because she called back at me. She said, don't do that quite yet. Don't do that quite yet, she said, don't do that quite yet. Was she seeing into the future? What did she mean
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 0:36
I looked at her curiously. Her face was cut with deep lines, and she had a slight scar at the top of her forehead. Her eyes were small, bright blue beads. There was something about her that was electric. She was beautiful, but she also scared me. When she didn't respond, I asked her if I knew her from somewhere. Don't you remember me? She said. You've been working too much
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:56
I don't remember anything right now, but something tells me I should remember you. She smiled and said, Come with me now. When someone says, Come with you, it's either for two reasons. One, they're they're going to take you for all your worth and leave you for dead. Or they're going to show you something that's going to blow your mind. I was hoping for the latter. So I went along
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 2:17
The sky was Gray and it looked like it was about terrain, so I figured, why the h*** not? I kept going, putting blind, trust that everything would be okay. She turned again, and before I knew it, I was walking into a dark hallway. She disappeared into the mouth of this building, and I continued to go, hoping that my eyes would adjust, and soon I'd see more
Shahnaz Ahmed
@bookishpodcast · 1:22
I don't know why Rufus came to mind. Was it his endless energy and bounding about mattresses, especially after I'd made the bed? Or was it how he would luxuriously stretch in front of a books and just lay there? The bookcase? I decided to walk forward and examine the books. And just as I did, I thought I heard a noise. Wait a minute. Why was I here? The woman. I turned around looking. There was no one there. Where was she?
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 0:24
Before I dropped out of College, I had taken a literature course, and I only remembered one story. There was a story about a woman who disappeared into the wallpaper, peeled. Part of me hoped that maybe I could disappear inside the walls and discover a completely new world than the one I'd been living in