Four people, or is it five, undergo a religious feeding, a ritualized beginning, preparing for the unpreparable.
Nothing happens, and a request for more is submitted. Patience is prescribed, rightfully so.
Each room is its own universe. Vibrations and tones shift in waves. Massive transitions brought on by a new sound or a dimmed light.
There are pro-packers and anti-packers, speeches petitioning for each side.
At last, pro-packing is unanimous, until a snowsuit becomes a naked man in an instant. Salvador painted him long before he was born.
No one knows where the ground is. A spirit guide doesn’t see himself that way. At least archaeology is now a moot point.
Previously, friends are somewhere else with something else and we almost join them. Instead a mind-bending record plays, accompanied by a performance on the wall. It still hasn’t ended, but I move on.
Pineapple bang! Exploding fruit, a future tattoo as a memento.
There is snow on a hill, and it means everything. Law and order is iniquitous.
The next day is strange, and I take a different path home, through the alleys. It’s the only way I go anymore.
I’m not the first to go through this day in a life. Ants march in unison but I never care again.
A bag holds whatever is needed. A pomegranate comes first.
Standing over an eternal associate with a boulder. Lay it down gently and wonder why it took so long.
A local newscaster who shares one of our last names is inside asleep, while we sit on his porch in relaxation and amusement.
Purple clouds engulf us and change our direction. Biking down a hill, an accidental staredown with the man who signs my paycheques. Hiking to a bay not so different from where my father grew up. Blueberries have never been so gratifying. An arranged assault breaks out in a park. We want to save the dog but end up stealing him. A never-ending bus ride to an escalator, a prelude to a knife throw in a forest. Floating on, outside a jolly green house with a parrot squawking in the basement. A shared song on a trail, where we bump into an officer who is on our side. Trapped in a house on a hill with randoms. The couch sucks me in.
I join my friend inside a coffee machine, but I leave him too early, not knowing how it will come back to haunt us.
A psychonautical disaster in a cabin I wanted to one day call my own. Tragic hipsters propelled into the extremes.
Temporary insanity is expected, and can even be a goal, but not like this.
Never again. I know I’ll be fine, but watching it devolve around me is excruciating.
Fire spreads, ulterior motives that prime distrust. The tears belong to all of us. The table hemorrhages comfort.
The dog joins us but leaves when he senses he’s a little too late.
Asserting how great it is the control he has over his world. Picking up the mountains and throwing them away, harnessing lightning as it appears. What’s he saying to you guys, the guy singing?
I try unsuccessfully to convey the story of Icarus to a man undergoing an acute bout of psychosis, willfully contaminating a garbage can.
It doesn’t matter. This place will look the same as when we arrived by the time we leave. It’s all just the passing of time. You will be the only one who remembers any of it. Right now she’s crying, and later she won’t be. None of it is real. It doesn’t matter.
He might be right on some level, but either way I clean it up.
The worlds changing in every moment, continuous, from a kaleidoscope to fear to certainty to love. The fear sticks around too long. Bring us back to love.
The family next door, their thoughts are partially correct but completely wrong.
Staring at a coin, spinning a planet, not acknowledging the company. Still shiny, still throbbing.
Past horror revisited, contradicting itself.
The visual lake, pulsating colours and energies, ripples an invite. A seemingly normal discussion can only happen at the edge of the water.
You left, you broke the one rule. You left last time.
No, you broke the one rule. You flew too close.
Look at me. Look me in the eye. Face it. You’re afraid to see the truth. It’s right here. I’m trying to show it to you but you don’t want to see it. You claim you do but you don’t.
His eyes blind me. There are two pairs, each one an eclipse. I can’t look directly at him, at them, and he knows it. Trying to get me to face myself, because there’s only me. It’s all for me. That shouldn’t alter the behaviour, but still needs to be kept in mind.
What happened? There’s no going back.
Just between us, nothing is between us.
Until an unwavering belief that I want him gone grows too strong. It is becoming mutual.
Will it ever go away?
I have nothing reassuring to say, except yes, with limited confidence.
Although we know it can, this is not supposed to happen.
He won’t listen. He chastises like it affects me. He doesn’t care. It’s a good thing I don’t either.
He will not go to bed, even though it is all any of us want, even after I pretend to go first.
Apparitions on the ceiling of the most ridiculous fractals imaginable, a timely reminder of the infinite joke.
I leave early, without saying goodbye, and they join me.