Refracted Neurons

This is a reoccurring dream I have where I discover that I have a lot of small animals (usually gerbils or fish) that I've forgotten about.  I haven't cleaned or fed them in a very long time.  When I remember about them, I find that instead of dying, they've multiplied. Last night I had this dream with some strange twists to it.  First of all, the dream was semi-lucid.  Second of all, it involved rats.  In other words, even though I know it's just a dream, the animals are getting bigger. I was cleaning my rats when I realized that there were a lot more of them.  There were around 16 of them, all stuffed into the cage which meant that some would be females.  I picked up an especially soft black rat and did a gender check on her.  She was a girl.  I definitely needed another cage. I went into the basement to get another cage.  There were lots of cages and aquarium down here and all of them were full of animals.  I had fish in fish tanks, gerbils and rats in cages. &

The word love,  spoken at the wrong time, is like old candy, melted and stuck to its wrapper, cloying and papery, chewy where it should be crisp. At least that's how much of my experience with the word love has been- like forgetting a crayon left on a vinyl seat of a car, it's inevitable. Both the crayon and the seat leave their mark on each other. But to omit the word love would be like boarding up the windows of a house because the world is too polluted, too violent, and the weather is always partially cloudy. I don't love any less because those fluffy clouds are really chunks of ice; neither is it fair to expect to make sherbet out of them. But I always keep a spoon in my pocket; even though I can already taste my own disappointment sticking in my throat, waxy and sweet.

I wrote this as a travel piece for a creative writing class.  The end result turned out pretty good if I say so myself.                 Last year Shangri-La made headlines for the violent demon uprising that took casualties from both the human and demon sides of the conflict.   While now perfectly safe, this incident made tourists wary of traveling within Shangri-La, and has resulted in the drop not only of hotel and food costs, but also in airfare costs.   There has never been a better time to travel to Shangri-La and experience its enchanting landscapes and mystical culture. Getting Around The best way to see the sites is to rent a jeep.   A jeep will cost a little more than renting a dragon, but is well worth it for the traveler who wishes to really experience Shangri-La and not just see the tourist areas.   There is nothing quite like driving through an empty canyon and experiencing a Shangri-La sunset resplendent in reds and purples. If you favor a cheaper, m