Crushed Velvet Dream Beetle 

I don’t see it, but I know it’s there. We get out of the car and my  daughter takes my hand. We walk through the parking lot to her  pediatrician appointment. When I turn my head to look, I catch the  sunlight glinting off mirror-black eyes.  

In a recent dream, I found myself sitting on the beach in moonlight,  watching the waves roll in. I felt it’s eyes on me, so I turned, and  there it was, a way’s off down the beach standing on its hindmost legs  in the sand. The Lime Green Crushed Velvet Dream Beetle with its  thorny legs like leafless branches of black trees, and its claws, and  its pincers, and those mirror-black eyes – always there, always  watching.  

I first encountered the dream beetle when I was six. I was dreaming  about my grandparents’ living room – mustard-yellow shag carpet,  burnt-orange sofa, wood paneling – and there it was, standing on its  hindmost legs on the brick mantelpiece, three feet long from pincers  to pygidium. It just stood there, limbs splayed out wide, watching me,  and not moving.  

First time I saw the dream beetle in real life, I was in my early  twenties and working as a bartender. Late one night I was in the  storeroom taking inventory when I turned and saw the beetle there,  perched on a high shelf like a weird, alien cat, silently watching –  as usual.  

The new thing since my daughter was born, is sometimes the dream  beetle leaves gifts. 

The first time it happened, I was at the acupuncturist when I saw  through the window the tell-tale shimmer of sunlight in the crushed  velvet of the dream beetle’s carapace. After I saw it there, hiding in  a bush, I forgot it about it. But, when I got back to the car an hour  later, I found a gun belt lying on the asphalt. It was a nice belt,  high quality leather, designed for a six-gun, like a cowboy would have  worn. I noticed, at the bottom of the holster, a bullet hole. Whoever  had been wearing it at the time must have shot themselves in the  thigh.  

A couple months ago, I got up early to take the dogs for a walk. When  I opened the door and stepped outside, I immediately noticed two  things: a rapid, skittering movement as the dream beetle scurried off  to hide in the bushes; a wooden prosthetic hand, a left hand, wearing  a black leather driving glove, lying on my welcome mat.  

There have been other items, each as incomprehensible as the last. A  cheap switchblade with a dulled blade, black plastic grip, and a  rusted spring; a bowl of pecans that had just fallen from the tree; an  antique over/under shotgun chambered in .410; a Rolleiflex TLR camera  with Schneider lenses and peeling leatherette. One day, as I was  leaving for work, I found my car blocked in by a 1970s-vintage La-Z Boy recliner finished in the same lime green crushed velvet as the  dream beetle.  

After I found the recliner, I decided it was time to leave a note,  perhaps start a dialog. I wanted to know where all this was going. I  wanted to know what the dream beetle’s intentions were. Mostly, I  wanted to be reassured this thing would only ever happen to me – that  the dream beetle would stay away from my wife and daughter.  

The dream beetle sent back a typewritten response reading: “Why would  I care about your family? I don’t even want to talk to you.” My wife  noticed there was a handwritten note on the back of the envelope. It  said, “One day your father is going to die, and your mother is going 

to forget to tell you,” which is a joke, but also probably not a joke  at all.  

A couple days ago, I found an old wood-paneled microwave from the  early 80s in my parking space at the office.  

Yesterday, a copy of the 1950 edition of The Complete Poems of TS  Eliot was laying in my backyard. I picked it up off the grass,  examined it. I’m certain it’s the copy that once belonged to my  grandmother.  

I just pulled up the blinds, and the dream beetle is perched on the  roof of my neighbor’s house. It’s never going to stop – it’s always  going to be watching. And what do I do with all these random objects?  Archaeology is – essentially – the reconstruction of the lives of  forgotten people through the analysis of the objects they left behind.  Is that what I’m meant to be doing here? Why? Why? 

I am so tired. I never sleep well anymore.