Tag: decisions

Prove It

The first thing he thought of, after recognizing where he was, and what he was doing, was the Rolling Stones song, “Get Off of My Cloud.” Not really correct. Does correctness have degrees? Sure, they give partial credit to partially correct answers. Yes, but not in this situation. So, he corrected, not correct. He wasn’t on a cloud. He was on a contrail, as he’d learned they were called, a chemtrail, as others called them in the second half of his life.

Poisonous air vapors, they were. Surrounded by blue sky, he was walking on them. As he didn’t know how he’d reached them (nor how he could be walking on them), he believed he was dreaming. How high was he? Well, very high. He’d read that commercial aircraft generally fly over thirty thousand feet in the U.S. He assumed he was in U.S. air space, although nothing supported that assumption.

Physically, then, he wasn’t doing this, couldn’t be doing this, unless it was a dream or virtual reality. There was no way he could otherwise be surviving so comfortably at such an altitude. At this altitude, if it’s over thirty thousand feet, he was higher than Mount Everest. The air would be too thin for normal breathing, he was breathing normally, he ascertained with tests. At that altitude, the temperature would be forty-nine degrees below zero, or worse. He wasn’t dressed for that kind of cold.

But here he was, in his Lee jeans, knit shirt, Nikes, and Columbia Wear fleece, striding along without issue. Which presented the idea that maybe these contrails were far lower than they should be. That was absurd, of course; that’s not how they worked. Nevertheless, he stopped walking, turned, and looked over the side.

Big, big mistake.

He’d been able to see mountain tops and distant horizons of clustered buildings and farmland when walking along. But now, looking down, he found a true sense of his altitude, and it freaked him out. He was so freaked out, he should awaken at any moment now.

He waited.

Nothing changed. He looked back and forth along his contrail. It stretched on for a long distance. He could do three things now. One, step off the contrail and see what happens. Two, follow the contrail and see if it led anywhere. Three, he could stand there and do nothing until the contrail faded away.

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Hole

You ever put a sock on that’s almost new, like, bought a month ago, and you find a hole in the toe, so you think about that sock and what you paid, and the hole in the toe, and how cheap some things are made, and how you should take it back to get a refund, but you probably don’t have the receipt, so you decide you should throw it away instead, because it has a hole, but then decide, screw it, nobody will see it, it’s just a sock, and I paid good money for that, so you put it on anyway, and then you can feel your toe sticking through the hole as you’re walking around, reminding you about how cheap it is, and by extension, how cheap you are?

Yeah, me neither.

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Driving in my Car

I was alone. Driving in my car, a dark SUV, which is not my car, but I had procured it for a dream.

Attempting to park, I broke the driver’s mirror and scratched the passenger side. I tried leaving the car but couldn’t open the door sufficiently to get out. I was too close to the rest.

I backed up, trying to create another plan. A black child was in the back seat. I didn’t know them. Apologizing, I told them to get out but took them for a ride to help them reach their destination.

Parking elsewhere, I learned I had a temporary room at a temporary location. I was in the Philippines. I was supposed to be leaving. I entered the building, cement with several floors. Going to my room, a military style modern barracks room, I discovered a mess. I wasn’t ready to leave at all. Opened and unopened cans of Fancy Feast cat food was everywhere. Most were chicken flavor. I attempted to collect and sort them into bags, to dispose of them, while also attempting to pack my clothes. I also found half-pints of unopened milk containers around the room. I didn’t know what I was going to do with them. I had no refrigerator, didn’t have any need for them, and didn’t understand why I had them. I couldn’t remember buying milk or cat food.

I was running out of time but strangers kept interrupting, and distant relatives dropped in to visit. I was trying to understand, did I bring my car here? If so, how did I bring it? If it was my car, how was I going to get it back to where I came from? I had airline tickets. The car couldn’t fly with me, could it? I found a picture of myself from the previous year a relative had taken and left for me to see. My photo disgusted me.

Pro football players entered. One was Ben Roethlisberger, the Steelers quarterback. The others were famous players. They nodded greetings toward me but were talking among themselves. I don’t think they knew me.

I needed more information to help me decide what to do but there wasn’t anyone to give any. I raced around, in and out of my room and up and down flights of stairs through the cement complex with the cans, the milk, my clothing, dodging people, trying to comprehend what was happening with my car, trying to decide what to do with it, wondering if I could get more time to deal with it.

I awoke with nothing resolved, with the dream streaming through my mind, filling me with thoughts about potential meanings.

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