Indulgence

dream sequence

Poe from Could've Gone Mad (written by Poe and Daris Adkins)
Another day and I could've gone mad
Another day and It might've gone bad

Everything is in black and white. The young man sitting by the window constantly fixes his hair. He's been growing it for his father and while it has done much to change his appearance; old friends constantly remarking on the change, it looks great or cut it short, what were you thinking? he doesn't pay much attention. It's about time he grew it long. His father has always been right and he doesn't have a pretty good track record in regards to decision making. He looks out the window. A young woman enters the room from the bathroom door smelling like oranges wearing nothing but a bath robe. She picks up his pack of cigarettes and even if the young man knows there is nothing in it, she is able to take one more cigarette and light it. He doesn't hear the click of the lighter but he is sure the cigarette is lit. The smoke wafts towards him lazily.

"What are you doing?" she asks. He takes his time to answer, then, slowly moves his face towards her, "Just sitting by the window watching the rain."

"But it's not raining."

He looks out the window again. "You just don't get it."

The scene changes like it always does. Suddenly. The young woman is standing in a forest. She starts to walk slowly northward. She doesn't know how she knows she's going north. She just knows. Soon, she is running. Perspiration begins to form on her forehead, arm pits, her back and she begins to tire but she continues to run. In a matter of seconds, what she is running from appears behind her. A pack of wolves, keeping pace, catching up. Black wolves with yellow eyes, large and hungry. She starts running. The forest edge is before her. She can see the empty fields beyond the last trees. The wolves howl. Beads of sweat falls into her eyes and stings them.

The young man rubs the mirror over and over again. The scene has shifted. He can't see his reflection. The mirror is like a window. His mirror shows him a cocktail bar. He sees zebras in street wear, caps worn backwards, large oversized pants and a jacket over a tanktop. 3 zebras sitting by the bar, cruising, obviously. This is not their kind of place. Here, the flamingo women wear cocktail dresses and expensive jewelry; the owls wear coat and ties and the chameleon jazz singer in a long gown, sitting on a stool. The colour of her dress changes as she does but never the same, always contrasting colours. She's singing My Way and during the instrumental parts, flicks out her tongue to the amusement of the turtles who are foreigners to this land. On the turtles' table, a martini for the husband and a ginger ale for the wife (who happens to be allergic to alcohol), a plate of papayas and their camera and her handbag.

The young man continues to wipe at the mirror hoping to get back to his reflection but he can't. He just sees all these images. They change from time to time but it's never his reflection. It's a window to other worlds, to things not real, to things not true but possible and, if he took the time to relax, enjoyable and amusing. Never had he thought about breaking the mirror; never had he thought of just going away of never looking at the mirror again. There's something about trying to get back his reflection.

Everything then gets hazy and then the tiled bathroom floor starts to turn to sand and everything is whisked away by a strong wind. Water comes in from the east and we are in a beach. Two old men are walking their dogs; one was a golden retriever and the other was a black wolf, huge and yellow eyed. The man with the golden retriever was complaining because he saw so much trash -- empty water bottles, empty containers of potato chips and discarded batteries all over the sand. The man with the wolf said nothing and constantly remarked how beautiful the day was; commented on the beauty of the blue sky and the clouds that looked like cotton.

"What is it that you think I need?" said the man with the golden retriever, finally, asking what he really meant to say that day.

The old man with the wolf laughed. He reached out his other hand and patted his friend in the back and said, "At your age, with all that you've done and everything that you've already built for yourself, it's no longer a question of what you need but of what you want."

Both men stopped as the golden retriever began to dig in the sand, his nose catching an odd scent and he wanted to investigate. The black wolf laid down and began to roll on the sand.

"You have everything you need," said the man with the wolf, "now it's all about what you want."

The old man let the leash of his golden retriever go to give him more reign as he stared at his friend in the eyes. The black wolf had stopped rolling in the sand and remained on the sand, staring at the golden retriever digging. The old man with the golden retriever said, "I don't feel so rushed anymore."

A dream sequence but born not out of slumber but what I feel right now. I am a child of metaphors. Symbols are my first language.

posted by wanggo @ 2:47 PM