THAT DAY

My ex-girlfriend Cheryl leaves a message. She's in town, wants to drop off stuff of mine. I don't want to talk. Midday, I go help upgrade my poet-friend Patagia's computer, so I warn my housemates Cheryl might show up.

Later, my housemate Lily tells me Cheryl did come by with some small items. "Seemed just like an excuse to talk. She tried to make it sound like you dumped her, instead of the other way round. I wasn't buying it."

And Alder, usually more forgiving, is blunt. "Cheryl came by? I don't want her in this house! I didn't even exist to her; I endured her rudeness only for your sake. You were so patient with her demands! I'm amazed you lasted as long as you did."

I hadn't realized just how much Cheryl had alienated my friends.

THAT EVENING

I read Tamara Drewe by Posy Simmonds, a graphic novel about love affairs in a writer's colony. Every heartbreak get literary vultures circling... even the participants. "O woe, O woe! Wait, I can use this..." Even the sympathetic narrators hide ugly aspects to their lives:

• The writer observing a husband cheat turns out to have been involved in his "accidental" death
• The teen never warned any adults her best friend was huffing solvents; they kill her
• Tamara Drewe toys casually, recklessly, with everyone in sight

I can't help applying it to Cheryl and me. Don't let it fester. A total break.

THAT NIGHT

I dream I'm standing barefoot on Our driveway in the dim green dawn. I long to nightcrawl, prowl, explore the City scene--but my bare sole's sore. A hound of wire rolls up. Three wheels! I stand frozen, it's too surreal. No motor, yet it zooms up like a ghostly rider on a Martian trike. A second spidery roller veers onto our sidewalk and disappears blindly up our street. Now more savage wolflike robikes roar...

Headlights swivel. And a cy- clopean videocamera eye. Souped-up chassies on the prowl. Silent wolfpack. Not a howl. Stalkers peering, casting round They hunt those blind & wiry hounds. A wolf halts in my face. White glare. Sends my image who knows where. I press hands in "Namaste" prayer, bow to eyes unseen, and... wait for a word. Long silence. There in stalkerlight I stand, Wolf-haloed til I wake.

"Video Wolves" song (1:57; 1.9 MB). Vocals and sax by Chris Wayan, 2013
Won't play? Plain MP3

NOTES

• Bare tender sole(s): if my soul(s) were tougher, more callused, maybe I could bond with Cheryl. But...
• Wolves: on a walk, I met a huge scary-looking dog who turned out to be harmless. Just bored.
• Glaring headlight fixed on me: Cheryl, still obsessed on me a year later.
• Cameras: bored teens in Tamara Drewe sent a neighbor a shot of her husband kissing Tamara. If the video wolf is Cheryl, the Tamara reference suggests she drops by and sends mean emails and bores her friends with Evil Chris stories mainly because she's bored.
• Fear it's predatory, but stand quietly, wait to see: don't fight Cheryl. That won't cure obsession! Patience. She may grow out of it.

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