I was at an outdoor flea market, and there were hundreds of square tin boxes for sale, with lids that would come off like those metal containers for Charles Chips. The boxes were arranged in categories, according to specific time periods in history. These were the categories:
Medieval
Romantic
World War I
World War II
Modern
Each of the tin boxes contained war relics according to its time period. I was perusing them and trying to decide which one that I would buy. I opened one from medieval Pakistan which contained a ridiculous military sweater. It was green and yellow, with a Muslim crescent, and the sleeves were too long and the midriff was too short. I purchased the British medieval tin box.
After that, I was with my dad, and we were driving to an apartment where a friend of his lived, which was located at the end of a long alley. I'd been there before, but when we arrived, the entire alley had been repainted in vivid colors. Dad went inside, but I just wanted to stay in the car, so I did. I wound up inside anyway, because the car became a bed in the apartment.
So there I was, in bed, in the living room of someone I didn't know, feeling very uncomfortable while my dad visited. I was naked under the covers, and I drew them up around me protectively. Then Dad said:
"I have to borrow that sheet, son."
So he took the sheet and left, and all I had was a pillow to cover myself with.
Later I was pissed off and in a pool hall. Somebody miscued and sent the cue ball flying off of the table and straight at me, and I snatched it out of the air, just inches from my face. I flung it away with a quick snap and and underhand backspin. I meant to land it on the pool table and have it spin to a quick stop, but it hit the opposite wall and shattered.
I was amazed that I had thrown it so hard. I quickly ran over to where the largest piece had landed and I picked it up. The cue ball was still whole, mostly; but about one fifth of it had been knocked away like a flint nodule, forming a wide, shallow and jagged crater-like declivity, at the bottom of which a handful of tiny diamonds lay nestled, sparkling.
When I moved the cue ball, there was a short delay before the cluster of diamonds followed suit. It was as if they were suspended in a thick liquid. Then they swirled and stirred, and tiny microscopic facets refracted the light in exquisite detail. It was almost as if a cloud of diamond dust, suspended in a slow-motion matrix, had settled there. I started at it, enthralled and motionless.
Then the cue ball began to crack, and as the cracks widened, brilliant light issued forth like the light of many lasers, illuminating the room and tracing intricate and shifting multicolored patterns onto every surface. Then the whole thing split wide open and fell to the floor, exposing a geode of concentric circles consisting of diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and every other type of gem of every possible color. There were two halves to it, and both were illuminated from within and were almost too bright to look at directly.
My sister, Cheyenne, was there with me. The brilliant beauty of what we saw was deafening, and I had to cover my eyes and shout to be heard over it:
"Look at what it became, Chey! Look, it split open into a geode! Look! Look, look! Look at it, it's a treasure, a treasure, a treasure..."
