Thursday, September 06, 2012
the road trip....
The arm is stretching out longer than the blurring
scenery. He stares out at it, lining his sight alongside of it, keenly focusing
on its curvature edges in contrast with the sharp groves and cuts that
comprised all the other objects in the forest, or the woods, or the park, or
the back yard, or wherever the hell he was just now at this very long and
slippery wet moment. As his arm shakes, jittering from the winter cold and
glistening from copious sweat, the notion of a terrible flu occurred to him,
but that thought vanished faster than his head had fired backwards from the
sneeze he blew out that hurt the back of his throat. His arm was still out
there, pointing maybe, or for balance, he’d forgotten why he’d sent it out
there, extended it into the open air. He thought it was funny that he forgot,
but in fairness he thought just about everything was funny now. Even the
burning at the back of his throat could not stem the tide of laughter, laughter
at the brown and gold falling leaves from the trees, laughter at the loss of
sensation in his frozen toes, laughter at the sun seemingly toppling from the
sky and falling into that stretch of mountains miles ahead of him.
His arm was out there, stretched
and he decided it was because he was pointing at something, someone, some
whatever…, he decided, with what little of him was left to decide with, that he
had taken interest in this mysterious thing ahead of himself, and pointed it
out to inform himself of it just before the mushrooms kicked in and made him
forget to care about just about everything.
Jesus
I hope it’s not a fucking wolf… he thinks. That thought comes through clear
enough. He heard that one and understood it, maybe he was even processing it,
maybe in a moment he would walk away or start jogging or something, somewhere in the opposite
direction of where he was pointing, maybe? Maybe turns to probably not as in
the next few seconds it becomes apparent to him that he remained still. It was
only the world that moved around and around and around in the corners of his
eyes. “There are no wolves in…” he stops again on that one, the idea of a
‘hungry wolf’ survives the current bout of his all too frequent mind wipes, These mushrooms are good! but what to do
about it, what to make of the idea of a man eating wolf closing in on him, what
will happen if they do indeed meet up, all of these are ideas that came pretty
easily moments ago but are now suddenly swallowed up and spit clear through the
fictitious hole somewhere at the top of his head.
My
fucking arm is tired. Comes his inner voice, this is nothing about the damned
wolf, this is about…,
what
is it about?...Oh, This is about the stiffness in his arm pit!
Yeah
that sucks, should oughta maybe do something about that, post haste, no?...
no?...Yes, then? Goes the chirping voice. It’s almost meaningless to him
almost as soon as he hears it.
What
the hell was it going on about? What arm? What oughta-shoulda-coulda-woulda,
what? He puts his arm down to turn to speak to the him he thinks is beside
himself whispering at him with his own voice. No one’s there, of course, no one
was ever there, and probably no one was whispering, but at least that arm pain
was slowly going away now, for some reason.
Stupid,
goes the whisper.
He swats at his ear as though his
head is surrounded by flies. He decides to ignore any voice that sounds like
his no matter where it comes from. Damn, these mushrooms are good! He staggers
a moment, having not found the him he thought he would find spinning around to
see if he could see him. I had three,
should have only taken one… he thinks, another clear thought, one he would
have agreed with if he’d remembered he’d thought it a moment after it came out
of his mind. It’s cold out here, but it’s
hot. He thinks, his feet are completely numb to the touch, the needles are
prickling him up to his knees, but at this moment he doesn’t know if he’s too
hot or too cold…, there’s copious water coming from the sky, but he was just
striding through the droplets, not getting a drop on him, slipping down through
life as it were. Damn, these mushrooms
are GOOOOOOOD! I just wish it would stop
snowing…
Instantly a giant monster was on
him, roaring, and blowing a horn as it moved at fantastic speed toward him.
It’s eyes were glowing bright and blinding, coming, coming down on him, coming
in at him. He shook, aware of the danger, all of a sudden aware, but not
inclined to move, to even save himself at the last moment. Huge screaming monsters, damn these mushrooms are good! It was
blowing a horn again, ten feet tall and blasting him with this deep sonic
sound. It’s round rubber legs peal
sheets of water from the flat flat grey ground, at last he steps back, beside
one of his tree friends. The rolling legs gallop by, the monsters giant red
metal head blasting that horn, a long trailer is hitched to the back of the
beast as it rushes by on the road. A deluge of murky water showers him from the
wheels of the speeding truck before it shrinks into the grey horizon several
miles away. In a moment its quiet again. He steps out from behind the tree, ice
cold water coating his skin, sobriety becoming a closer companion now that it
had been just a few minutes earlier. Yeah, he thinks, breathing heavily and
shivering. These mushrooms are damned good,
but maybe tripping by the side of this road was a terrible idea!
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