I want to know what it is that has the power to instantly transport a person 23 years into the past. I want to know so I can keep it from happening again. There's got to be a temporal shield or something out there that keeps me nailed down in the here and now.

This blog entry was supposed to be a rant about a petty woman who collects 'important' people like charms on a bracelet. It was supposed to be clever and talk about how she has this maddening habit of dropping names like it somehow makes her more important just by association.

I decided to watch a little TV before settling down to write my last blog before I leave for a few weeks. That's when I saw the gun and I remembered why I stopped watching TV a while ago. Avoidance is not actually a very good temporal shield. It just lulls you into a false sense of security so you are totally unprepared for the next time jump.

There you are, avoiding a lonely life by watching CSI or some other equally absorbing distraction when suddenly an image flashes on the screen and 'poof' its February 19, 1983 all over again and...… and I’m editing out the story of what happened to me because, if I could tell it, I wouldn't be telling it to you.

Little things are revealed. Tiny fragments of memory hang on a thread like charms dangling from a bracelet. Shiny little symbols bound to a chain of events.

The shiny little silver people on that woman's wrist glitter like the silver barrel of that Colt 45 in the moonlight. There are lessons here, if only I could grasp them. Somehow it's about betrayal. They both said they were friends of mine and turned on me in one way or another.

The charms on that woman’s bracelet remind her of who she would like to be and of who she would like people to see her as. They make me angry because they remind me of the day I died. No links clasp shiny silver people to me or ever will because I'm not really here. I really would rather have lived and loved like a normal person. I should have had that chance. I did nothing to deserve what he did to me.

That woman did nothing to deserve loyalty from the people charms she collects.

Michele did nothing to deserve to suffer and die like this.

There is truly no justice and no hope for mercy or compassion in this world. There are no happy endings and life is NOT beautiful.

Then again, maybe I’m just a brat child having a tantrum because that woman thought I was worth collecting then suddenly decided I wasn't and cut me off her bracelet like I was never even there. Maybe I'm just bitter about how many bracelets I've been cut off and about the fact that one of the very few bracelets I still cling to is leaving this world.

Or maybe I just want a bracelet of my own to love as if there were nothing bad in the world.

Maybe I will have good dreams again tonight. I hope so.

"Sweet dreams," is the nicest thing anyone can ever say to me.