CHAPTER II: The Arrival
“I live life from the inside out.”
Once upon a travelling dream, deep within the valley of the Northern Reeks, I heard the sound of the Draag Bavilim. I swear I fucking did. $/he was in that place between the two trees in the twisted wood. Caught up in the mirrored limbs, below the magma, cold as a rock, $/he spoke to me saying:
—Of those who enter: Never exit. An inviting evil, ever present. Upon the gates forever shown, shall be no sign or plans to close.
Contact came in the flash of a flame against my skin as I was glancing into the black. Oh that variable corpus lucidum. What a convoluted path to radiance, I thought. Ollie whispered to me, Hooray it’s LA, and I awoke to find I’d fell asleep at thirty thousand feet.
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In the evening like—
From the outer reaches the city lights of Los Angeles are diamond sugar on a Tequila Sunrise. The Aquarius dome of the western shore bends back, set to the mark of my electric mind, and the sun feathers cobwebs around the fantasy of time. In this way it tickles my perception with passing cars and neon signs and the moon over Mulholland Drive; fabricating memories I will never have, only potential futures and the collective recollection of beautiful people bursting onto the screen like water from the St. Francis Dam; a most magnificent failure.
—Spring Street & Ord with the camera fading out.
Whether I’m sitting in a dilapidated motel, or floating at the edge of an infinity pool, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve been there before. It doesn’t matter if I’m alone or with friends—possibly both—the thought will occur to me that there is so much to write about. I will believe I can compose an epic poem about the silhouettes of the palm trees alone.
Or a man sitting with a newspaper drinking whiskey in a well lit living room. All the while his children lay flat on their tummies in front of the black mirror. Pajama clad legs swing at the knee and Mike Nesmith yells, Wow-wee what a great lookin’ chick!
Through an open window, the not unpleasant smell of toasted cigarettes wafts lazily in the air from the two straight fingers of the ethereal wife. She is out in the sunset backyard giving life to flowers. Each time she shifts water graces the ground; separating the path into light and dark. In the atmosphere a hint of summer rain and roses begins to form.
Time stops, and in my mind it’s a daydream palace: the family, the car, the table settings, the ultra-pleasant lavender haze, the beside stacks of mystery novels, the...
telephone rings.
—I thought I told you never to call me at this number.
And just like that it all goes to pieces.
In the dead of night like--
There is a woman down by the beach, alone and uncovered, feeling her soul climb into her eyes. The sky is capped with clouds, grey and tumbling in a tide of their own. She stands barefoot in the sand and in her translucent hand is a bottle of white cherry wine. The sea licks her toes in the wind and a castle appears in the distance. To this place she begins to run, and her hair is charged with static lightning. When she gets there she sees that it is not a castle at all. The boulders dash. The misty spray. She looks back from whence she came, and sees the ferris wheel on the Santa Monica pier. Overwhelmed with herself and fact that there is nowhere else to go, she sits and watches for spirits on the water. A bird whistles and flies away.
And then she cries.
—Silencio in the microphone; the singer faints.
You could be drunk at four in the morning fighting in the street for fun, or riding in a limousine drinking endless champagne. Either way you are a speck of gold in the American river. It goes on and on and there is no stopping it now, only perpetual motion and a strange desire to return to the sea. Staring at the horizon proves it all. This meaningless playground is merely a hint of the treasures to come. But I swear I caught a glimpse! I am certain I saw the flash of red and heard the rustling of leaves. Such is the feeling of California dreaming. I could write a three volume novel about the sun on the highway...
Or the tunnels of prose in the bookstore downtown. Someone buys a collection of short stories, and they return to the street where it’s all honking horns and spilt soda. On a bench they read and define characters with their mind, only to lose interest and superimpose the story on what they see. There’s a homeless man playing The Eagles and someone yells, Freebiiird!
The neutral suits of men smell clean and baseball caps hide the salt and pepper hair of Hollywood tycoons and that girl over there looks just like that actress, only you can’t be sure because her head is down and her hand is up, but it doesn’t matter much since she’s tucked behind sunglasses and showing off her legs. It’s all a big madness, but it’s the world’s madness.
Flash, red carpet. Flash.
It’s all sweet like--
Half the earth away over stormy seas, a lamp illuminates a windowsill. Shadows cast over the face of a young girl wondering who she might meet when she gets to Hollywood &Vine. Here’s to hoping that it’s someone eternal. On that fine day she’ll be in the golden state where everything is dripping with sex and magic is money. The men will be handsome devils and the women will smile like Marilyn Monroe. She’ll return from her journey reborn and anointed with the pixie dust of Libertas. From then on she shall bear witness to her friends about the joys of the best in the west.
But there are those that know better. You could write an perfect screenplay about the transparent smog...
—Tangerine.
We are all a thousand miles away, thinking the same thing.
Last night I experienced a projection. It came on quick, and swept me away. I was transplanted into the body of a man driving down a desert highway in the violet hour. Twilight twisted every which way as I listened to the radio play oldies but goodies; Feeling Good with Nina Simone. There was a curve up ahead, and a formation of rocks blocked my view of the horizon. As I passed by the monolithic mass I spied a man by the side of the road. For a reason I cannot remember, I stopped and asked if he needed a ride. At first I didn’t see it, but when he got in the car the wound on the side of his head was as clear as day. His hands were bloody and his clothes were torn. He had the smell of damp earth emanating from him, and his voice was like gravel in a wood chipper. The next thing I know there’s a silver gun pointed at my head.
—No hospitals, no police, no nothing, no nobody.
I grip the wheel and my knuckles flare bone. I want to speak but I can’t force the words out of my mouth.
—Take me where I want to go, and soon you can be on your way.
He says to me, he says.
—No questions asked, it will be as if the thing never happened, you understand.
It was a statement, not a question. I drove him to a pile of ashes, and never saw him again.
In the early hours like—
I became conscious of the city lights; the candy crystals of the new dawn. The vibrations in the Earth woke me. It was Santa Monica in the summertime. We went in search of a place to dine. We sat at a table by the window. The food was hot and good, but all I could think about was the events of my dream. The waitress topped off my coffee and it steamed like her smile.
—a naive and wistful vision.
That’s when I decided to write down everything I saw. It’s not the first time this has happened, and it won’t be the last. Part of me believes that when I sleep I disappear and wake up on another planet lightyears away—but this is reality not science fiction. I know there are things that shuffle in the dark, and I fear what it means to live forever. But do not get caught up in all that just yet, there is much more to be said.
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