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My neighbor's rooster continued to rob
me of sleep for the past seventeen days,
crowing early in the morning hours often
before dawn had begun it's official ascend.
I loathed that rooster, who I called Chuck,
with malice, with a severity reserved
normally for long-standing enemies.

This urban tract was so very unique; a tiger
made headlines when he left the apartment he'd
been kept as a pet for over three years, back
into zoo grounds and eventually the wild,
the neighbors finally complaining about the noises
and peculiar smells to the authorities.
And now, a rooster. In the middle of Brooklyn.
I was close to doing the same with ol' Chucky,
calling the animal feds on him, but strangely,

lately, secretly started to grow fond of him, would
really have hated to see him end up on a platter
and continued my exterior hatred for show but
held close my strange fondness all the same. I
wasn't sure why, but the feelings I also once had
for her began to surface once more. Feelings
I was sure had fled long ago, for the girl whom we
parted ways on less than amicable terms, who I
wished dead than taking up space in this world.
It was her presence I desperately wanted to see again,
and I could not recall why. I had loathed her, I remembered
and there wasn't anything worthwhile to account for
being near her, talking to her, loving her.

But now, I couldn't seem to conjure any injury on her
part but remorse on mine for not still being with her.
Everyday, the feeling seemed to grow; how long had
it been, since last I laid eyes on her?
I wanted her so.

Baffling.

Went to bed earlier than normal, the dusk sky filling me with
inner tranquility and slept soundly for hours. I dreamt
of her again. We were frolicking along patches of daisies
and dandelions and her lips, I was enamored by her lips
and the compositions they took as she spoke words
I could scarcely recall at present, amazed at her talents
for captivating me so with little effort. She called me her lover,
her savior, and I called her my joy in life.

But then I saw Chuck off into the distance, looking at us,
standing in the middle of an intersection, clear as day,
though we were in the middle of a patch of field away from
modernity. She looked to me, asked who he was and I
told her his name and lot in life, though not great, and she seemed
pleased with it, so loving, so unlike the memories I once held!

A ladybug landed on my nose and a funny feeling ran through
my body as I focused on the cute bug and woke with a odd start
to see a man dressed in a fine Italian suit holding the biggest paint
roller I could ever imagine existing, taking up the space entirely
of my room. He looked at me with wide, confused, scared
eyes, seemingly shocked. I was about to beg my pardon when I
realized that it was my room, my bed I lay in and his intrusion that
should be the shocking factor.

"What are you doing here?!" I asked, trying to appear angry.
"No, no, no, you wasn't suppose to wake up, why are you
up? No, no, no, this isn't right at all!" he started, running words into
each other in a confused fashion. His oversized paint roller
dripped of black liquid that turned to steam after falling a few
inches and created a thin veil of clouds floating towards
my ceiling. "Why are you awake?!!" he asked me fiercely,
swinging the paint roller from one side to the other.

I didn't know how to respond. Should I be apologetic? Angry? I was
definitely confused so I rode that feeling for a while. There
was a mystery surrounding his aura I couldn't shake and felt,
though at the same time reasoned it insane to reason as such,
that I shouldn’t fear him. And then again, she appeared in

my head, and the happiness and joy I recently associated with
her couldn't be found. And nuances were recovered in the sea
of memories of traits and reasons I wanted so badly to leave her.
And I felt myself angry. Angry that I had ever wanted her back.

He took a handkerchief out and blew
his nose, again asking why I was awake. "I, I don't know.
I was dreaming about her, and such a grand dream it was, but
then a ladybug landed on my nose and I woke up."

He stared wide-eyed, slack-jawed. He dropped the paint brush
and smacked his face in defeat. "Her favorite bug! How
stupid! Oh dear, how stupid!" he said before hopping up and down
in a minor fit. I began to see HER face in my head suddenly,
the girl from the copy store, Anna, I think her name was.
Oh yes, I remembered how much I adored her but kept putting
off advances for the oddest reasons I couldn't
even attest to at the moment.

"You weren't suppose to wake. I'm a Dream Wiper, well,
Memory Wiper to be more precise. Your, your memories and dreams,
the negative ones I wipe to replace with nicer ones to make
you loop and go back or forget that something or someone is
bad. It keeps people busy and annoyed and their lives stay put
being miserable, but you, you woke because I was so stupid,
stupid!" I was even more confused, felt my comments, any of
them, would be fruitless and kept silent. "The ladybug, oh the
ladybug! It's Anna's favorite bug! I needed to black all her thoughts
away or they'd rouse you up, break the Catcher up."

"Catcher?" I asked. "Yes, dreams I invade are called Catchers," he
replied. "And you, for some reason, take longer than most to
wipe, I don't know why, you just do. And now, all my work is
wasted and it's even pointless to try anymore."

He was truly distressed over this fact. He loosened his tie
and tapped one end of his paint roller to the ground and
all the black clouds began swirling around, creating a minor
vortex before it's base touched down on the roller of the paint roller
and became absorbed until any hint of the black cloud disappeared.
He loosened his dark green tie and looked at me with
an annoyance and said, "Everything is completely messed
up now, you have no idea, everything is completely wrong.
You think she's right for you? Oh, you just don't know, you just
don't know!" I guessed he was speaking about my renewed affection
for Anna. "I don't know what's going to happen to you now," he said,
shaking his head. He started walking towards the far cornered
wall in the room and then walked through it and was gone.

I reviewed what just happened, considered how it could at all be
my fault for his error, couldn't still reason if I should be the
offended one in this situation and had my thoughts broken up
with Chuck's wake-up call. I gritted my teeth and couldn't even
find the silent affection I once held for him. I considered
calling the SPCA about him later on in the day and didn't feel
hurt over my decision in the slightest. "Stupid bird," I muttered
into my pillow as the sun hinted at it's arrival way off into the distance.