| Bits and Pieces Stream of consciousness from a dream. Thanks to Kid Rock for the soundtrack. We drove in the blue Oldsmobile with the patched back window and rode in silence to the end of the world. Supposedly going south but it looked like north on River Road a few miles out (the get-toned road of North America, it is said). Trees give way to desolate wandering prairie gives way to trees. Hundred year oaks, part of a circle cut in half by railroad tracks, a dusty-green bar squatting 60 degrees up the arc. A song blares in the background, somehow, in the quiet and the muteness ..."everybody knows my name..." we are in Moffit, ND, buying an Amtrak ticket so you can go to the coast, Seattle, Washington. "...everybody knows my pain..." One last walk up and down the gravel drive. "...took too many pills..made a couple dollar bills..." A big shiny engine appears, followed by a silver string slowly, from behind the tree line. "...payback...listen for the playback..." The works strangle & choke & jumble themselves, a dirge. You have a contract to become famous & disappear. "...watch my youngest son, helps to pass the time..." I am so alone, or will be. Me and myself. I haven't even looked at you but it is obvious. "...everybody know my name, sing it way out loud..." You board the carriage monster thing, up a stair/ladder over my head walk to the extreme rear/front as far forward as possible. Thirty years down you head and one arm appear, black shades covering half your face; now you're wearing a white shirt. You wave, wave, wave, mechanically like a beauty queen on parade, but just for me. "...outstretched hands and one-night stands... can't buy love...." You are waving, goodbye, goodbye, and I know I will never see you again. The words of the song pull back into the dream, sticky strands of mind-goo, even though I'm waking, can see the blatant symbolism I'm feeding myself. "...and when the walls come tumblin' down; will you still be around...?" No. I wave and you wave till you are a speck, and gone, and I stand. "...people don't know 'bout the things I say and do...don't understand...relationships that I been through..." They won't understand this either... ...but then neither do I, still frozen in the rolling hills laced with barb-wire fences, and someone's one one-bar-town's one bar's stupid jukebox narrating my life. PamEhli/2000 |
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| Since 1-9-03 |