:17:17
I had a dream last night.
:17:20
You've had this dream before?
:17:25
Yes.
:17:27
Please tell me about it.
:17:33
I'm lying in bed at night and...
:17:38
this thought comes into my head...
:17:40
that my insides
are slowly detaching themselves...
:17:43
from one another.
:17:44
Stretching.
:17:47
Little gummy strings of me
getting thinner and thinner...
:17:50
about to snap.
:17:53
My mother
is a very beautiful woman.
:17:58
Even now.
:18:02
She discovered all the wealth
of the Borgias...
:18:04
in one
prematurely balding executive...
:18:06
and she was not about
to let it slip away.
:18:09
Even after they got married
she told me I had to thank him...
:18:12
any time he did anything for us,
or she'd punish me.
:18:16
So I did.
:18:18
Whether it was for a gift
he bought me...
:18:20
or a glass of milk he poured,
or when he put gas in the car...
:18:23
I thanked him.
:18:27
One day he picked me up
from school.
:18:30
He told me...
:18:32
there was no need for me
to be constantly grateful.
:18:37
My stepfather talked to me
as though I were a whole person.
:18:40
He won me over.
:18:43
I grew to love him.
:18:45
Eventually the memory
of my real father faded away...
:18:50
and those...
:18:53
dreams I used to have ended.