there was a man. he lived next door. he was always in my garden. i had been lost and broken at nineteen and came back to my parent's guest house to heal. it was in a neighborhood with security guards around the clock.
i was attending UCLA (the first time) and riddled with the kind of headaches that make you throw up. the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with me. but, i was tested like a lab rat. many days i didn't make it to class because i couldn't see around the cluster of light that was caught in my eye. later i found out i was having some kind of seizure brought on by all the dieting.
anyway, one day the next door neighbors house was on fire. i'd had a premonition about it the night before, but never told anyone because how can you be responsible if you see a thing before it happens? no one would believe you anyway, they'd think you made it up.
i have had a lot of things happen to me that sound made up. that's why it's important to write it all down.
i came outside, like everyone. i got dressed first, because it was back when I still thought it mattered how i appeared to the outside world. the man had set his own house on fire. i remember my parents asking me what kind of relationship i had with the man.
i only said, "you mean the dude in the kumquats? he was on the property a lot and smiled and waved when i left." i wasn't a person yet. i didn't know he wanted to talk to me and i was very sick at the time.
my parents asked a few more times about it. they, or the man, or the wife of the man thought the arson had to do with me. not that i did it, but that the man did it in reaction to his imaginary relationship with me. i never knew what happened to that man or his wife.
they were german. my german neighbors.
