I had a dream last night. My youngest son and I, along with a third person, whose face I could not see, boarded a ferry. The ferry was a fully functioning water vessel, but we boarded at the corner of 5th Ave. and Luminous St. We never once touched water, instead hovering just above the black, baking in the summer sun pavement.
I almost did not make it onto the ferry. My ID was mistaken for a man who had passed away many years ago. That man had been a world famous jockey.
The security woman, 4' 2" tall and wearing a green scarf with wild horses galloping across a desert landscape stitched meticulously in shades of brown and grey, recognized the photo of the famous man and eyed me wearily. Seeing the ID I had given to the petite and willowy, almost transparent, woman, I at once attempted to snatch it from her hand. She shrunk from my aggression, turned and walked away.
I protested, trying to tell her that the famous jockey was my great, great uncle. She disappeared into the aft section of the asphalt skimming transport.
With no one to question me about a now lack of ID, I hurried to catch up with my son. Just as I reached his side, and was within shouting distance of the captain of the craft, the most amazing sight floated above and then in front of us.
Hi above, but not hi enough to clear the marble and limestone buildings lining Luminous Ave. was a gigantic bus, four stories tall and six-hundred feet long. The monstrous flying bus was weaving side to side. I couldn't help myself, I walked to the front of the ferry and tapped the captain on the shoulder.
"You need to slow down," I said. The captain brushed my hand aside and continued forward. She nodded to a man next to her. I glanced at the man, only able to see him from behind. Startled, I, at once, realized this was the man who had come aboard with my son and I.
Before I could step forward and finally see this mans face, the bus hi above and in front of us glanced against a stately brick building on our right. Bricks fell to the pavement, a hole opening up on the side of the building as the reeling airborne vehicle tacked left and slammed into the capital building, destroying the dome atop the three-hundred year old marble monolith.
"Please slow down," I yelled at the captain, sure we would be crushed by falling debris.
It was then that my son grabbed my shoulders and said....
"Everything is fine, dad. We will make it to the island in a few minutes."
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DBurg View Post
The faceless man turned and…
The world around me turned to sand. Everywhere I looked sand. Impossibly tall dunes rising, rising, rising to the slowly moving clouds, white with purity taken from the souls of children cast aside in the rage of war.
Once a part of the ocean’s saltwater tapestry; fluorescent pink and blue coral, shellfish cast ashore over millennia, worn thin by the insufferable wind. The dunes hiding that silent aching ancient life within each tiny grain exhaled a tormented yearning. The hushed wail wished to salvage the children’s souls trapped in microscopic ice prisons resting on the wistful dust of civilization held aloft by the foul wind.
To reclaim even one of the imprisoned souls, to mix the sea’s silent aching ancient life with innocence lost upon the shoulders of human conceit would unleash upon the shores of ignorance the force of beauty, the notion of the jungle running rampant, armies of creativity melting gun powder and it’s histories spawn.
The man laughed; guttural, from the sewer’s rotting detritus, **** and piss filled flow. Sand dunes lurched into the sea, giving up their noble quest and uncovering pistons coated in oil, messengers shackled to desks, phones looped over their thinning hair, mountaintops shorn of boulders, thick trunked trees and their very tops. This was the face of the unknown man.
How much time passed, I don’t know. I yearned for the island. Where was the island?
My son approached the man. I wanted to grab my son and run from this place. I couldn’t move. I screamed inside as the man’s face, pistons moving up and down and dripping thick black oil where his mouth should have been, crumbling mountain replacing his nose and brows, tiny shackled beings mirrored in the millions where his eyes should have been, became obscenely concerned about my son’s wellbeing.
My son addressed the monstrous visage. “Will we be safe on the island?”
“Of course.” Oil spilled on the deck of the ferry. “We take care of everyone on the island.”
My son smiled. “That’s good. My dad was worried.”
Dirt and forest green fern shook loose from the man’s eyebrows when he jerked his head to look at me.
Millions of mirrored beings peered at me from beneath the disintegrating brow. “There is something for everyone on the island, even you.” The pistons pumped faster, like metal teeth ratcheting up and down, up and down.
I forced my head to shake side to side. “No.”
My son frowned. “But, dad, that’s just the way it is. The island is safe, and we can have whatever we want.”
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Breeze heavy with the freshwater scent of humanity’s tepid discards, the ferry silently swung east off Luminous St. onto Coral Dreams Ave.
Bodies jumping from the windows of the gigantic bus as it disintegrated in midair filled my mind’s vision. I pressed my fists painfully against watery eyes, trying to force white knuckles through pupil and ocular nerve in a vain attempt to destroy impressionable brain matter. Accepting silence enveloped the ferry, but was broken by the screeching impact of metal upon ivory tower, marble accepting engineering marvel without question. Finally, the sounds of destruction ceased. Silence returned, and the scent of humanity’s tepid discards grew stronger.
The glittering ocean appeared in front of our floating vessel, the city’s skyscrapers, littered sidewalks and blinking lights forgotten for a moment. The ferry slowed, slowed, and stopped at the water’s edge.
My son was standing in front of me, next to the man with the factory carnival face. They were peering out at the gently rolling water. The captain cleared her throat and in a trapped within a tiny box baritone voice announced, “We have arrived at the island. Please begin disembarking.” She then turned and walked to the aft section of the eerily still boat.
With my right hand, I grabbed my son’s left hand. “We are leaving and going back to the city.” He looked at me confused. He then turned to the man next to him.
“This isn’t an island. This is the ocean.”
The man turned to him. The man’s face had changed. Soft, wrinkle-free skin, slim straight nose, blue eyes, light brown hair and perfect white teeth had replaced the pistons and rotting countenance. He smiled an angelic smile.
“Look into the water. What do you see?”
My son and I both looked out to the water. Just the rolling waves and the musky scent of nature meeting humanity’s onslaught. “Let’s go,” I said as I pulled my son away from the front of the boat.
The man laughed. Not condescendingly or in malice. He laughed as if we had missed seeing the eighth wonder of the world. “You must peer deeper, deep below the surface.”
My son turned back to the ocean. I couldn’t help myself, I turned with him. The man’s voice was like a song trailing off into the distance, begging for those who could hear to follow the melody wherever it led.
Something was in the water. Closer we inched to the rail. The smell of the ocean gobbling up concrete, metal, stone and human rind grew overwhelmingly sweet.
There, just below the surface were people walking as if on clouds in the air. All around them were fields of green, forests and mountains. Far below the people were stars and planets, multiple suns and a distance unfathomable.
My son gasped. “Look at that, dad. We can hike forever. Do you see the horses and deer?” I did.
And there were fields of wheat, fruit trees as far as the eye could see, and a rainbow, so bright it cast its colors over the entirety of everything beneath the waves.
“This isn’t real,” I mumbled, wanting to disbelieve my own words.
The angelic man smiled at me. “Search your heart.”
I wanted so much to reach out and touch the water. I wanted it all to be real. My son smiled back at the man. A barely perceptible metallic glint shone through the man’s perfect white teeth. I frowned. His smile faltered, but only for a fraction of moment.
He looked at my son. “Jump in. You won’t be sorry.”
I gathered strength, filled my mind with thoughts of all that was good about life.
“Son,” he turned towards me. “Underneath the city behind us was once all those things you see under the water. They are still there. We simply need to help the world see through the machines and blacktop.” My son frowned. I continued. “Out there,” I waved at the sea. “Out there is what we want our world to be again, but it is not real. Look closely at the man next to you.”
The man’s smile was wavering. More steel replaced his teeth, the crumbling mountains sprung from his brow, brown eyes gave way to millions of souls trapped somewhere unreal.
My son stepped back from the thing in front of him. “I want to go with my father.”
“Noooo!” wailed the visage in front of us. “You chose this ride. Now, you have no choice!”
The ferry began to shake, as if it wanted to go onto the water, but was unable to breach the invisible line between land and sea. Gears turned beneath the deck. The boat began to tremble, cracks opening in polished wood walls and flooring. My son and I backed away from the railing. The ferry bounced off the asphalt. Our knees buckled, but we did not fall.
The thing screamed at the ocean. “Never again, never again. You will never have what you want again, you fools!”
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“Dad?”
Nothing but sea, sand mixed with black moist earth, shells, cordgrass and light mist, orange scented mellow on the bright blue breeze emanating from somewhere behind the lazy setting sun, content to drown once more in the distant mirror’s past.
“Dad? The sun is setting over the water. That’s east. What is…?”
I tried to see the world around us just as my son. Were we seeing the same thing? I knelt next to him, scooping shells and soaked earth into my hand, letting the fine grains slip slowly between fingers, left with tiny winding worlds, happy in the muddy palm of my hand.
“Do you smell orange?”
My son nodded. “Where did the ferry…and that gross looking man go?”
No ferry. I slowly turned around, my knees sinking into cup-shaped, clammy impressions. No buildings. No streets. No signs. A vast tangle of cordgrass, dotted with open spaces like the one my son and I occupied. Beyond the sweet, clean smell of orange and…worms, dunes climbing inland, merging with and disappearing into thick trees worn by the land like a sweater against winter’s bitter waves.
I looked up into my son’s wide eyes, wonder and fear reflecting, penetrating the air around us. The muscles of my body tightening, tighter, and then letting go, loose, leaning forward, my forearms resting inches deep in the dark wet life. Without looking up again, “I don’t think the ferry was ever real. I don’t think this,” I lifted pounds of squirming earth aloft, bringing it close enough to taste “is real.”
He smiled. “Maybe it was ‘Murder to the Mind’ like Tash Sultana says. She’s my favorite.”
He began singing. I knew the song.
Tell me, do you feel?
I am real
Do you seem satisfied within yourself?
Still wish sometimes in my life when I ask you, you chase us
I don’t know what to do
I couldn’t see the beautiful world
That was in front of you
And I was begging for forgiveness, but I couldn’t forgive myself
And I was screaming out for help
It was murder to the mind
Blood on my hands
Fire in my soul
A fourteen-year-old singing the words of a twenty-year-old, and more truth than any fifty-year-old could ever hope to stumble upon. I looked up once more. My son was still humming, but he looked ancient, like the soil beneath his feet was seeping into his pores, breathing eons of being into his teen body, mind and soul. I wanted to weep. When would this fantasy end? Where would I be when it ended? In the concrete city? The mountains? Would my son be by my side?
Inside, I was begging for forgiveness, but I couldn’t forgive myself, for I was complicit in the deceit of being human. Silently, I screamed out for help.
