By Raphael O’Suna

I stepped in quicksand once, by a wild river in California. And I lived in a place that had been vacated by Charles Manson and Family.

Once, while breaking into a florist shop–while I was cutting the glass, I hallucinated. I saw an infant crawling across the floor inside. It spooked me, and I ran away.

An elderly neighbor of mine had been in a Russian prison, where they tattooed themselves with sharp, but rusty nails. I once found a gun in the Bronx Botanical Gardens.

I was suspended and dismissed from schools, because I gambled incessantly and became a thief. I was the only child to defend and protect the only black child in my grammar school class.

I once threw a boulder off of a roof. There was a car below. I have never run with such maniacal speed, fear, terror and exhilaration in my heart. I virtually flew down the five flights of steps.

I set fire to a clubhouse, and then later to a night club, which was filled with people. Only the bathroom was scorched.

I remember every unusual thing my older brother ever told me. I know where there is a hidden gold mine on Pike’s Peak.

I almost went on an expedition into the Amazon jungle, in search of a lost city; but I  didn’t have the money.

Once I was sent down a manhole to fetch a ball. The other boys put the cover back, while I was still in the sewer. They did not know that I was claustrophobic. Neither did I. I remember the face of my jeering brother, more mob member than family.

When I learned to do acupuncture, I began by sticking needles in dead birds that I found in the forest.

I still recall my first nightmare (or maybe dream). I was two or two and a half years old. I ran down the hallway of our apartment, completely terrified. To this day I don’t know if I had dreamt the scene of my last death, or of my death in this life.

When I was younger, I could tell who was going to die soon. Sometimes when I killed someone in one of my stories, they would die in real life. Characters that I made-up would sometimes appear, often with the name I had given them.

Life is a jumble of things, tumbled together in consciousness. Even when the operating powers of mind grow dim, scraps of memory will flicker irrelevantly.

Even if pieced together, no picture of the puzzle will appear. These scraps are like the clothing on a scarecrow. They make something soulless seem a soulful thing.