Ire and the Bad Neighbors

22^nd October 2014

Dear Cassi,

       

I have named the kitten Ire for her early temperament thou I must admit she has become rather playful and well behaved in the last few days. She has spent much time on my shoulder even sitting quietly as I filmed a video.

       

Ire’s testament to the poor nature of my neighbors has become more pronounced as she takes on proper nutrition. The wound on her right front paw nearly cuts her foot clean in two, and I can clearly see the shreds of flesh that make the exit wound between her toes.

She stumbles on the foot every now and then but acts as if this is a bother rather than a true wound. I spoke to the man across the street, and he insists it was an animal attack, but that would have led to infection and how would it have an entry and exit?

That fellow has confided in me that he has a stray cat buried under every rose bush and that he “discouraged” these animals with a pellet gun before finishing them off with a .22 caliber rifle.  I guess you could say I live amongst monsters, but I’ve known that since I was in my 20s.

I would remind you that in 1990 my mother died, and Yule, the old man who calls himself my parent, never took it on himself to live with and look after his children. I didn’t think of it at the time but leaving a ten year old in the care of a 14 year old mental patient can’t be legal.

Should it be legal for the neighbors to ignore this condition? Surely they noticed that there wasn’t a car in that driveway five nights a week. Further, how old should I have been before this ceased to be child abuse? Should I look at all that lived around me when I was 14 as guilty of this criminal negligence?  I can’t answer these questions, but then I have a kitten to look after.

Keep your eyes open, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Parasite

14^th May 2013

Dear Cassi,

       

For some time now I’ve had this reoccurring dream about being lost on this campus. I’m not sure if it’s a college campus or a commercial campus, but the buildings are so high they block the view home. I can also tell you they are made of white concrete and decorated with muted pastel. There is a sterile hospital feel to this place. The people of this place are always turned away from me as I wonder about searching. I feel as if I am just a phantom among them, but they have no identity.

       

I would wander around the campus looking for the parking structure that has my car, but as dreams would go, there was more than one place my car could have been. I would wander around as the sun went down in my dream feeling the need for sleep but finding no place to even sit. This was a thing that in my dream would last days, and I would get more and more exhausted. I felt trapped in a world where my efforts were useless. 

       

Trapped and weary are feelings common to my life, and I think you can understand these feelings as well as I. The feeling is strongest in my back along the spine. It is pain but not just pain. I feel an internal nagging itch that cannot be scratched and yet will not go away by any other means.

       

Then there was my dream this morning and it was so vivid in nature but so very strange. It started with a black shape moving beneath my skin.  I caught it and it writhed under the pressure. Feeling a hard body I pressed and the thing came to the surface as some mutant thorny turtle protruding from my flesh. The thing was not a true black but rather the dark gray brown of burnt car oil. I squeezed this like a pimple and it came away taking with it large shreds of skin.

       

As is the nature of dreams the product of this action was rather large by comparison, and I saved it in a specimen bottle. There was some blood but not much, and the wound was little to worry over. I then found myself wondering that same campus in search this time of a doctor to look at my bizarre parasite. Sometime in this adventure my legs were wounded and I took to having to crawl. The specimen became very large as things can do in dreams and was much the burden.

       

In my crawling, I found friendly faces that both helped me along and at times asked for my help. I found my way to a lab where my injuries were seen to, and I so left to wonder again looking forever for my way out. My steps were retraced and the building finally looking familiar I found myself oddly alone but without disorientation.

       

In the end, I found myself somehow, as only can be in dreams, able to fly and so flew home. I felt so much joy as the wind rushed by and the scenery ran beneath me. After a long time, I was finally free.

Freedom lives in your heart, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal