The other night I had vivid dream.
As soon as I woke up I knew I had to write it down.
Three hours later this was the result.
There I was, on the shoreline. My toes dug into the sand like a
kitten’s paw and my hands felt as if they had just held their first cup of
morning coffee. The sun was shining like a molten marble. Its surface was a tempered
glass and it's dusty tangerine rays slipped into the water like molasses. The
sky around the sun acted like angels stuck in a mural. The clouds swirled like
a fog on a bed of roses creating a painting of damp apricot yellows, coral
pinks and a tawny red. Like feathers, the clouds got close, but not to close to
the marble sun. The scenery moved like an oil painting instead of setting
naturally like a floor prop at the opera house. It just hung there, dangling in
the sky.
The carrot, the stick and the horse.
I stood there perplexed in it's queer beauty, "this had to
be a dream" for like Frost, I don't believe that anything gold can stay.
I may have stared at this sun for only minute, but it felt like
hours. Then, over the crashes waves there was a plea. My name, it was being
called. I turned around to see a massive ship that may have just been a large
tugboat and people were boarding. Walking up a wooded gangplank all the people
were dressed in elegant suits and diamond incrusted gowns; it was a royal wardrobe.
I stood there on the shore watching them from a distance as they all walked up
the ramp like giant birds. The sun made their faces perfect; their complexion
-- it was perfect. Then it happened. A tan gown, hemmed with golden fur,
spotted like a leopard with diamonds the size of paperweights shaped into
teardrops shimmered like a ribbon in a vineyard. Her arms and legs were a noble
cream pale and her face burned like a rose stovetop. She wore white gloves to
her elbows and small golden crown as thin beret.
I watched her from the shore like a snake. She walked up the
gangplank onto the vessel like peacock, shimmering from side to side.
My eyes
traced her body, predicting her steps and imagining that she walks like
everywhere. She walked like she had walked on water. But then she stopped, as
if frozen in time or someone had pressed pause on videotape. She stood there
perfectly balanced and composed in mid air. She turned her head just enough for
me to see her face and at that moment I recognized her immediately. She smiled
at me like she had done before, before the beach, before this dream. She
brought her hand close to her face; she waved at me. Just as still as her
pause, she waved. Time stood as still as a man's heart could and my body was an
earthquake. As she looked at me her hand fell from her face and drifted to her
side. She clutched the arm of the man walking her and then kept on going.
My lungs boiled, my stomach croaked and my heart calloused. I
could feel my hands constricting like a statue and my feet pulsing. I was
moving. Closer and closer to the ship like a creeping best I walked. Each step
felt thicker, but with each step I grew stronger. The sand wrapped it's self
around my ankles and parasitically bore it's way into my flesh. In and out, in
and out the sand tunneled its way under my skin like a worm. It was not trying
to stop me, for I could not be stopped. It wanted to come with me. My paces
quicken leaving craters of footprints. Disgusting, it was disgusting. My
forearms were bursting open with sand like puss. Which each new cavity the
sand would spiral inside my wounds, like the worm it was feeding off
of me. I no felt no longer human, I felt disgusting. My legs had become
the size of cannons, forearms contorted and ribbed like sea rusted
rebar and my eyes were bullets that had buried them selves deep
within the concrete of my face. I stood in front of the ship, ready to
explode.
I heaved my carcass up on to the gangplank, snapping little
bits of wood and shell littered the ship. The ramp creaked like a thousand year
groan and the steel of the ship found its voice, it's dead hallows echoed in my
ears from the weight of my body. I was an intruder and I was ready to act as
such. But there was no one. In anger I placed my mitts upon my head, grabbed my
hair and ripped it from my scalp. Sand, like to the texture of dried
vomit oozed from scalp and drooled over my face. As the
sand perpetrated my vision I could feel the anger subsiding. The
monster in me was being tamed. I could no longer see and could only assume
that soon it would creep into my open mouth and sing me to an eternal sleep.
Every thing in a bright flash went hazel orange. I couldn't
remember what the boat looked like or even what she looked like. I could only
remember the sun. And like the dimming flash from a camera my eyesight returned
to me and I had not moved an inch. I was still standing on the ship, the sun
was still hanging like a stocking and as I looked around there they were. Every
person was looking straight at me. They were staring with a powder gaze and
jinxed twitch in their fingers. I looked my hands and they were
normal. My legs, they felt normal. I felt my face and it felt normal. I saw my
self, and I was normal. The only think out of order was that I was dressed. I
had a suit on and sailor’s hat. But it wasn't just any normal sailors hat, it
was the captain’s hat. The fast forward button somewhere had been pressed. I
was carried off to a gallery room by a blur of cocktail attire.
People circled around me as if to congratulate me, made
lines past me as to thank me and even all together avoided me as if to leave
me.
In this blur I saw faces, terribly bland and unoriginal faces.
The suits were all black and white while the dresses brushed the deck with the
same hollow scrape as an empty can.
I was alone now, alone in a room to
which I could not see anything; except for that sun poking it's head through a
small circular window. It still hung there. I had to escape, so I walked
out towards the bow. I was alone again, alone to what fate had next for me.
As I looked down from the railing the waves crashed against the hull, smacking it like toddler handling a balloon. The seagulls yapped and cawed above; it was just like it should be. I turned around to find my self-staring at the gangplank. It was about twenty yards from me and the sun had positioned it's self behind the women who was now walking towards the gangplank. It was she.
As I looked down from the railing the waves crashed against the hull, smacking it like toddler handling a balloon. The seagulls yapped and cawed above; it was just like it should be. I turned around to find my self-staring at the gangplank. It was about twenty yards from me and the sun had positioned it's self behind the women who was now walking towards the gangplank. It was she.
I ran to her but my feet went nowhere. The sun was blinding and the
air was thick. I was still twenty yards away and she was getting closer,
getting closer to leaving. I ran again. Nothing. I ran again. Nothing. Was the
sun pushing me back or was the air holding me down. I ran one more time. My
foot moved forward like an oar, and then the next foot. I was getting
closer but then my feet developed a poor quality. I collapsed on the ground, my
hands splintered by bracing my fall. Blood had collected around my palms in a
sticky puddle. I looked up to see
that she had just made it to the gangplank. My throat took my body and set it
on fire. I screamed her name. She stopped. She turned and smiled again, like
she had done before, but this time she whispered something. But I could not
hear it, I could not taste it and I could not feel it. I could only feel what
was happening and several pieces of wood were burying their tack heads
into my palms, the sun was glowering and the girl was leaving. I screamed her
name once more. She waved at me once more and then she kept going. She had
heard me, I know. Into the rays of the sun and golden heart of sand she
was gone.
I regained my strength and brushed my self off. I looked down
and my hands and they were clean. The rage came back and my body began to
quiver. I marched back inside of the ship to find the crowd still; they were
lingering with drinks and d'œuvres on tiny plates. Mouths full of crushed eggs
and ranch soaked carrots. I pushed my way through the crowd like a plow in the
field and made my down below deck to the engine room. It was full of grey steam
that stung my cheeks and bristled my beard. I was alone again. There was one
small port window, and there it was the sun glistening.
The sand entered my
body once more as I began to punch a very large control panel. Flames and metal
glazed my fists as each impact went deeper and deeper into the metal box. The
gears popped and fizzled like eggs on a skillet. My face filled
with blood. I screamed again and again and again with each strike. I feel the
life the ship crumbling beneath my weight once more. The room began
to fill with hot flames. The great pistons of the ship snapped and started to
thimble holes through the floor. I
gazed upon the engines, as I knew I was about to take its last breath when a
hand placed it's self upon my shoulder. As I turned to look to see who had
touched me the hand spun me around and it was a close friend of mine. He peered
into my eyes and said, "It's time to go Captain."
I awoke with this song stuck in my head.
A Far Cry // We Were Promised Jetpacks.
Loved this. Wish it could be animated by Studio Ghibli
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