My Top 10 Death Row Short Stories.

Dear Mataki,

      I work at a hotel. I  plunged a toilet today. And as the guest stood over my shoulder watching his shit battle with me, all I could think was Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short story, "Eyes of a Blue Dog."  The story takes place solely in its narrator's dream. A man and a woman are isolated from one another in waking life which is fueled with loneliness and desire. The narrator cannot remember the woman when he wakes. The woman is unsure whether she merely dreams of her agonizing searches for him. It is in my top 10 death row short stories. A great example of magical realism, a literary style that employes elements of myth, fantasy, and the supernatural with an otherwise realistic storytelling technique. 
      I had a dream that same night about meeting someone only in dreams. We would turn into different animals or objects to consummate whatever distance was between us in waking life. We were sea lions. And when I woke, I wanted to go back, go back to the sheltered sea grass beds, the mangroves, turning bright colors, melancholy and the near-sighted connection.