A Child's Guide To American Empire
Written and Illustrated
PART ONE
1.
I dreamed I was at the edge of the sea. Heavy clouds shut out the sun and tossed a few
showers in the distance. I walked toward a group of people standing at the end of a pier
looking into the water below. I moved through the crowd of men and women, young and
old. There was no railing. I balanced nervously with the shifting crowd and looked down.
Women rolled in the water. Their glassy eyes stared deep into mine as their serpentine hair
waved around their faces. There was a bad taste in my mouth. I turned away and walked
back. When I cleared the crowd, cries of alarm stopped me in my tracks. Dark forms rose out of the water. The people rushed at me. I saw a large brick building
on a hill and ran for it. I pounded on the door and bolted past the woman who opened it. I
ran through rooms full of people, dining rooms, cocktail parties, boardrooms, dinner
parties, saunas. I bolted up a grand stairway and into an empty bedroom with a window
that looked onto a balcony. As I lifted the window, the screams of the dying echoed in the
rooms below. I awoke to the sound of rotten fruit falling on the floor. My eyes snapped open. The
screech of an angry wasp’s nest made me sit straight up. I stumbled out of bed to the
drunken moans around a piano bar after midnight. I wandered toward them in the
darkness full of curiosity and fear. They grasped at me. They grabbed hold of me.
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