There is a loud blast, and a fwoosh!, accompanied by the sweet, chemical smell of turpentine. Before I turn to see where the sound had come from, I notice that the from the ground plumes of oily, black smoke curl up towards the sky, and there are thousands of tiny fires peppering the landscape.
"It was those people," says a low, gravelly voice, and I know that it is the balloon itself that has spoken to me. "They fell like bombs to the earth, and now everyone burns." I turn around.
Sean is standing in the center of the wooden compartment, which as near as I can tell is roughly the size of my bathroom. His head is shaven and his face is dotted red with acne. His eyebrows are thick and black, and his eyes seem to have a sound of their own as I remember his voice clearly. He smiles at me and then looks upwards through the hole in the balloon and pulls on a long brass chain with links two inches thick, releasing a gust of whitish-blue flame with another fwoosh!
I knew it was a misunderstanding, I think. People like Sean didn't die. And people like me didn't- I knew it was all a mistake. I'm so happy. I'm so relieved.
"Why did you not go into the mountain?" the voice of the baloon says to me again. "You were supposed to."
"I tried," I say. My answer is half-hearted, obligitory. I am much more interested in talking to my friend.
"Hey, fucker," I say to him, giving him a punch in the ribs. "Where have you been?"
Sean says nothing, but he smiles that dry old smile of his that always preceded his obnoxious laugh, the laugh that sometimes would also precede an even more obnoxious scream. I used to wonder what was in that scream that made it so forgivable, how it was that Sean was able to wear his punk-rock-styled obstreperousness well. After he died, and all that amazing energy exploded into all of us, changing us, I came to understand that it was that his body, tough as it was, was unable to contain the abundant lifeforce he generated, and when from time to time he let it blow out through his superhuman vocal cords we all got to see just for a minute what it was to be Sean, and it felt good.
In which I shamelessly abuse the internet.
Monday, February 21, 2005
My Dream Pt. 3
I sink through the blackness immediately, the water rushing so quickly past my ears that I feel as though it digs a channel through them, eroding my brain and pouring out the back of my skull like a jet stream. Instinctively squeezing my legs against my chest with clenched fists and tight arms I seem to offer no buoyancy to the water, and sink deep and deeper, leaving the raft and the sunlight and the unexplored mountain far behind me. I expect to feel at any second the sharp tearing of my body against the rusted, twisted junk that I know litters all levels of the water. I expect to hear a fleeting crack and see an explosion of light behind my shut eyes just before I die.
But it is when I shut my eyes that I understand that this was never water at all, and through my eyelids I see that I am falling through the grey sky high above an intricate network of roads and cultivated farmland. I can barely suppress a scream as the sense of vertigo overtakes me, but the thrill of mortal severity my situation injects into my bones is wonderful, and I feel alive and clear-headed for what seems like the first time since my childhood.
All around me many others are falling as well, and I know that they each have something they are trying to tell me, if only they could manage to direct the course of their descent to coincide with mine. As they zoom by, limbs flailing, I catch bits and pieces of their message that they scream to me over the wind that howls in my ears. "...wwwASN'T ANYTHING YOU COULDA DOonne..." shouts a blond, middle aged woman wearing denim overalls. Her face is twisted into a mask of violent glee as she calls to me, her hair flickering above her, and her voice cuts off abruptly as she whips away from my field of vision. A fat man, also grinning maniacally, swoops toward me, his neck bent awkwardly as he tries to catch my eyes from slightly below. Streaks of blood course over his shiny, bald head, trailing from his nose and ears, and beneath the wiry stubble on his face his skin looks grey and dead. He opens his flapping jowls and I hear "...nnnoOBODY SEES IT THAT WAY But yoou..."
All the while we race toward the earth, and more of the landscape before me looks green and alive. The people spin by more quickly, each one seemingly more ecstatic than the last, though I feel their frustration at their inability to move close enough to me so that we may fall together and talk. Soon their fleeting voices blend into a wall of noise that ripples my attention, and then finally it becomes a single, wailing siren as if from a distant ambulance sweeping over the city where I live. No earthly sound has every caused me so much unrest as the type of siren that now penetrates into my dreamworld; it sticks in my brain like bacon grease. The sound disappears after only what seems to be a few seconds, fortunately, and I open my eyes to find that they are gone, and I realize that I am no longer falling, but standing in a small, wooden compartment, floating in a hot air balloon, still far, far above the earth. And someone is in there with me.
But it is when I shut my eyes that I understand that this was never water at all, and through my eyelids I see that I am falling through the grey sky high above an intricate network of roads and cultivated farmland. I can barely suppress a scream as the sense of vertigo overtakes me, but the thrill of mortal severity my situation injects into my bones is wonderful, and I feel alive and clear-headed for what seems like the first time since my childhood.
All around me many others are falling as well, and I know that they each have something they are trying to tell me, if only they could manage to direct the course of their descent to coincide with mine. As they zoom by, limbs flailing, I catch bits and pieces of their message that they scream to me over the wind that howls in my ears. "...wwwASN'T ANYTHING YOU COULDA DOonne..." shouts a blond, middle aged woman wearing denim overalls. Her face is twisted into a mask of violent glee as she calls to me, her hair flickering above her, and her voice cuts off abruptly as she whips away from my field of vision. A fat man, also grinning maniacally, swoops toward me, his neck bent awkwardly as he tries to catch my eyes from slightly below. Streaks of blood course over his shiny, bald head, trailing from his nose and ears, and beneath the wiry stubble on his face his skin looks grey and dead. He opens his flapping jowls and I hear "...nnnoOBODY SEES IT THAT WAY But yoou..."
All the while we race toward the earth, and more of the landscape before me looks green and alive. The people spin by more quickly, each one seemingly more ecstatic than the last, though I feel their frustration at their inability to move close enough to me so that we may fall together and talk. Soon their fleeting voices blend into a wall of noise that ripples my attention, and then finally it becomes a single, wailing siren as if from a distant ambulance sweeping over the city where I live. No earthly sound has every caused me so much unrest as the type of siren that now penetrates into my dreamworld; it sticks in my brain like bacon grease. The sound disappears after only what seems to be a few seconds, fortunately, and I open my eyes to find that they are gone, and I realize that I am no longer falling, but standing in a small, wooden compartment, floating in a hot air balloon, still far, far above the earth. And someone is in there with me.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
My Dream Pt. 2
The rock peninsula does not appear to be drawing any closer, though I am certain that a good deal of time has passed, and the swampwater churns gently as I am driven steadily ahead. As I realize this I find myself standing at the foremost edge of the raft. The displaced water slaps the wood, chills my bare feet. I look down at my toes curling over the edge and find that from this vantage point the water appears again to be dark and cold. I am suddenly aware of the thick, ominous space that spans between the bottom of my feet and the swamp's murky, unimaginable depths. It imposes itself on me, and I feel heavy, drawn into it. The blackness of it permeates throughout the limits of my awareness, eclipsing the warmth and lightness the ubiquitous sunlight of the open day had inspired. What I feel as I peer into it is not fear but a sense of desperation in the face of its strength and inevitability, though as I stare beyond my own warped, inscrutable reflection I am conscious of the paranoia and irrationality that bubbles over it.
Anxious to disembark, I lean forward, toward the stoic mountain, convinced that by doing so the speediness of the raft will be somehow increased. There are often moments in my day-to-day life in which my own brain betrays me by imagining in vivid, horrific detail the most tragic sequence of immediate events possible. Sinisterly, this internal tourette's usually deals with someone whose well-being I care for much more than my own. Sometimes it is as simple as playing out the immediate alternate future of a near miss, such as seeing my cat, Obie, suffering terribly, gasping for life with a crushed and ruined body after I have unsuccessfully avoided stepping on him. Other times, however... A CTA train rushing toward me as I stand waiting at the platform with my Anna... A moment in which if I were to push her only slightly she would...
Because I can not control these sickening images I see this as the darkest evil within myself, and it seems to me to be a curse that can hurt me at any time. A curse that intends to terrify me that one day I will succumb to the impulse in an instant of insanity that will destroy my life and the life of someone I care for forever.
It is this same curse to which I attribute the tendency of my dreamworld to take its cues from my immediate fears. In the instant in which I see the possibility of plunging into the dark water I find myself smacking its surface.
Anxious to disembark, I lean forward, toward the stoic mountain, convinced that by doing so the speediness of the raft will be somehow increased. There are often moments in my day-to-day life in which my own brain betrays me by imagining in vivid, horrific detail the most tragic sequence of immediate events possible. Sinisterly, this internal tourette's usually deals with someone whose well-being I care for much more than my own. Sometimes it is as simple as playing out the immediate alternate future of a near miss, such as seeing my cat, Obie, suffering terribly, gasping for life with a crushed and ruined body after I have unsuccessfully avoided stepping on him. Other times, however... A CTA train rushing toward me as I stand waiting at the platform with my Anna... A moment in which if I were to push her only slightly she would...
Because I can not control these sickening images I see this as the darkest evil within myself, and it seems to me to be a curse that can hurt me at any time. A curse that intends to terrify me that one day I will succumb to the impulse in an instant of insanity that will destroy my life and the life of someone I care for forever.
It is this same curse to which I attribute the tendency of my dreamworld to take its cues from my immediate fears. In the instant in which I see the possibility of plunging into the dark water I find myself smacking its surface.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
My Dream Pt. 1
I am standing on the waterline of a swamp. Behind me is a sheer, rocky, volcanic cliff wall that stretches off to my left, to the east, as far into the distance as I am aware. Around me the boulders are fused together and enormous, and their shadows are dark. The water immediately before me is black and still, but sweeping away from me it blends first into a deep, pine green, then grows more vibrant until it coagulates into an algaeic lime so rich it glows through the underbrush. As I scan the area of the swamp I see it ripple at the base of many thick clumps of tall, dry grass that waves in the breeze.
I find myself navigating a wooden raft between the weeds and around small islands that support gnarled, stunted trees. Though I am unaware of the specific position of the sun, it seems now to me that it is simultaneously early morning, midafternoon, and late evening. It is hot, and the heat strikes me suddenly. I remember the cool rocks at the shoreline, I almost miss the shade the cliff face provided.
The weeds have become sparse, and the raft now seems to move under its own power toward the pinnacle of a jagged peninsula just west of where I had been standing. It is there, I know, that I will find a cave, and a tunnel, and something like an ancient temple or pyramid buried beneath the volcanic mountain, which I will explore. I have the sense that this is a route that I have taken many times before; a secret route that I have often used to make my way from place to place. I am filled with a childlike thrill. I am happy.
As I float through the swamp images come to me of other places I have visited via this path. I see faces of cheerful people who wait for me there, of whose existence no one is aware but me. I miss them.
I find myself navigating a wooden raft between the weeds and around small islands that support gnarled, stunted trees. Though I am unaware of the specific position of the sun, it seems now to me that it is simultaneously early morning, midafternoon, and late evening. It is hot, and the heat strikes me suddenly. I remember the cool rocks at the shoreline, I almost miss the shade the cliff face provided.
The weeds have become sparse, and the raft now seems to move under its own power toward the pinnacle of a jagged peninsula just west of where I had been standing. It is there, I know, that I will find a cave, and a tunnel, and something like an ancient temple or pyramid buried beneath the volcanic mountain, which I will explore. I have the sense that this is a route that I have taken many times before; a secret route that I have often used to make my way from place to place. I am filled with a childlike thrill. I am happy.
As I float through the swamp images come to me of other places I have visited via this path. I see faces of cheerful people who wait for me there, of whose existence no one is aware but me. I miss them.
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