Night of Terror

I am riding as a passenger on a jet airliner leaving Hawaii. We ascend and make ready to fly throught a long tunnel. The tunnel is dark and we fly through it, although I am frightened. The plane is dark and it seemed we were coming to the other side of the tunnel, as the tunnel lightend, the engines flamed out. All of them. The good news ia that we made it through the tunnel, the bad new is that new we are rapidly falling from 30,000 ft. I can feel the pit of my stomach rise. The worst part of this is being able to think about it on the way down. I decide that I should be the Zen master and sit calmly with my seat belt fastened, serenely watching the chaos as we fall.
I am in a in a sports car with my brother and we had just left an Air Force function. Had been drinking and since we had 2 people in his Porche Turbo 911 it was time to take the HOV. We headed through an underpass where a motorcycle policeman is monitoring traffic. My brother passes him on the left berm of the high speed lane. He looks over at me, with a hlaf-buzzed expression and says, "We should be all right because I wasn't speeding. The cop hits the lights and pulls put after us. My brother is pulling over and the cop collides with another pack of motorcyclists. I watch them tumble in slow motion. We stop and survey the carnage. People wailing and hurting, moaning and crying out but no fatalities. It's too terrible to look. I have to help but I don't know where to start.

Snow Storm

I am in the satellite room of a clean room area in a familiar factory. The interior is a bright white. I am there with a myriad of male and female students. At first I think I am in training, but this is not the case. I am in design school and this class has just wrapped up for the day. There is small, end of the day talk passing back and forth between students, and I make a note that Cathy Choi is here, a classmate from second grade to the end of elementary school. We have some small talk and I note the design projects. Mine is a burnt sienna colored graphic novel full of high drama.

Out in the parking lot it has snowed and I have left a rear car door open. As I am cleaning out the snow, a housewife/student engages me about the Dodge Magnum I am driving. Because I had to park the vehicle on a high snowbank when I came to class, the vehicle appears much taller than it is in reality. A group of soccer moms gather and coo about the large storage space on the rear of the vehicle. I am perturbed, trying to make it home in the suddenly developing snowstorm. I leave.


Driving is challenging on the foot of tightly packed snow that comprises the road, and I am winding through a neighborhood I am not familiar with. A snow plow robot is clearing a perpendicular street. It scares me and then stops short of hitting my car. It's method of plowing is mindless and haphazard, but at least whatever property/person sense device hasn't frozen and injured me. The robots diesel roars back to life, and it continues plowing in another random direction. I make a right hand turn in the snow onto what I hope is a street. Houses are getting closer together here and I instinctively know I am approaching a down town area. The storm is getting worse and now I am behind a motorcycle with a plow attachment making it a six wheeler, The wheels are large, charcoal, and industrial, and at first I think it is another robot. I am stuck behind the vehicle and cannot make a safe pass. The moto-plow stops and a rider appears from the left side and approaches. It is a mousy young lady. Very young and showing some very angry looking acne. She begins to interrogate me about my destination and she gets close. I can feel the heat from her breath. She's recently eaten a hot dog. I am not interested in her, but she continues to press in, applying pressure in her actions, trying to break me down. I realize this is a battle of will and in this round I am victorious and extradite myself from these spontaneous proceedings and continue homeward.

I arrive home and try to remove my wet clothes in my kitchen, as to not track the water inside. I am startled by my father entering the house. He has had an accident in Ohio. A collision has occurred between his red Dodge pickup and a motorcycle. I am glad he is OK and help him unpack the truck.

When we are finished the motorcyclist comes into the house. He is in grave shape with a external fixtures on his arm and leg and a halo holding his head steady. He explains that the accident was entirely his fault and that he really likes my Dad. Greatest man he's ever met. I agree with him. My wife comes into the room, and I note that the kitchen bar has change from an L-shape attached to one wall to a square island. Design school is really paying off. This design allows traffic to both side of the sun room. I like it. I note the chairs surrounding the island/bar are narrower and more numerous, with a slight hint of Asian influence, treated with black lacquer. My wife comes over the one of the chair and sits. In a few moments it breaks and she scolds me for buying poorly made furniture, but in my mind I am fairly sure I designed it as a model and it wasn't intended to be used.

I say nothing.

The Jesuits

I can see a overhead view of the bar and grill that I am in. It is in Boston, and has dark, hard wood floors, scuffed and clean. I can see the mahogany bar presiding before a long table. At the table sits about 24 men in dark suits, sober and silent. I spiral down clockwise to my 1st person view and can see a large chalk board that has the daily specials on it. I see the bar in its entirety and it reminds my of a seafood restaurant at the Charleston Town Mall. The special is a rib-eye (rabbi) steak. I can see that the table and know instintively that it consists of Jesuit priests and a wing of Vatican accountants. I can see the expressions showing the stony and grizzled expressions of men who are told that they have cancer. I talk to the bartender, about the ancient chalkboard that this bar is famous for. It seems like the chalk board s older than anything I've ever seen. The conversation then turns to the table of catholic emissaries. I am told by the bartender that the men have a mission to find, the ultimate relic, in its extant form, the actual body of Christ . The acceptable forms of the remnants of the body of Christ is soil, ash, and honey. The actual and real body of CHRIST! It seems the ultimate silent admission, a denial of every tenant of belief. I note this, and fade into a different scene, in which I realize with a heavy feeling that a former relationship actually had a sideline in pornography. I never get to interact with the person, only seeing the images,against my will, repeatedly. When it is over, I a convinced of the truth of it, and begin to anguish.

Crossings

I am smoothly transitioning a bridge of still water. Mists have risen and there is fog on the bank I am approaching. It is a clear morning light, diffused and gray, in the leaden veil that is the sky. It is winter, the long and reaching branches frozen in black silhouette against the gray background. I am with someone as I cross further on the bridge, but who it is is unknown. I have a sense of the bridge, that it has a few long arcs of singular construction and ancient stone work. As I come to the other side, I see endless rows of headstones. It is a cemetery. The person I am with reveals only to my consciousness that she is female. I feel a lingering kiss on my cheek and am moved.

Werth Air Circus

It is early morning and I am on the back porch of the farmhouse. I can smell the coal fires in the air. The dirty smell of coal that we and the neighbors are using in the coal stoves this morning to drive our the slight chill and the dew. The sky is clear and the grass is heavy with dew.

On the round tops of the hills that make up the back acreage I can see airplanes. Vintage airplanes. Vintage World War I and World War II Airplanes. "Oh,I see", I think to myself, "We are running an air circus."


On cue, the first bus of tourist make the uncomfortable left turn into the gravel drive way, up the red dog, and start filing out when the bus comes to a complete stop. Stan come out of the back door and I, for just a second, can smell the bacon grease in the air. It reminds me I need to go in and get a jacket.

Stan is here. He reminds me I have a show to do. There are tourists here and some one needs to fly the planes. I understand that these planes are no ours, but part of a company that has an interest in the farm and we need them to keep what we have. Ultimately it means that I have to fly one of these ancient planes.


I gaze around the area and look at my options. There is a broken down World War I dirigible observation craft, half deflated, gray and quilted, drooping and overgrown on one of the far banks. I feel the presence of the corporate entity that runs this show, making demands of me, wanting me to maintain military bearing. I will not do that.

Disheartened that any organization would demand that anyone would fly in, what is now alarmingly becoming obvious, badly abused museum pieces, builds a fire inside of me that comes out for good or ill. I am commanded to get in a bi-plane and proceed to the other end of that farm and pick up a flight jacket that numbers me among the members of a WWII aircraft carrier. I am to fly over there and pick up the jacket mid air.

I refuse and walk over to the jacket. After many minutes, I arrive and look at the back of the cracked leather flight jacket. On the back is a tattered emblem that actually has a White Water Rafting Advertisement on it. I am disgusted and head back.

The tour bus has loaded up and is pulling out. Stan talks with me after that, and approves. We get in the 1968 baby blue Rambler Ambassador 4-door and head down the road together. I can smell the moth ball scented interior.

19721 Maplewood

I often come here as late.

I am familiar with this house. It is my Aunt Betty's and Uncle Don's home. I am in the kitchen and unfortunately the kitchen looks unkempt. In fact it is dirty with leaves and debris in the floor, as if it has been exposed to the out side. I have a sense that my brother is here in the house, but I can only feel his presence, I cannot see him. I roam into the living room and everything as far as the furnishings and decoration is as I remember it, except, it needs to be cleaned.

I decide to order a pizza from Dante's Pizza to be delivered. It feels like there is going to be some work to do and my brother and I will be here a while. As I am talking to the Pizza guy, he informs me that there is enough orders on the account at that address for a free pizza, and I decline. I decide I'll leave it for my uncle. I feel in the dream that he is still alive, but my aunt has passed away at this time. The pizza guy tells me that's probably a good idea, because Don seems depressed and agitated.


At that moment I realize the Don is not only alive, but in the house and has already ordered some pizza from Dante's.

I go to find him, apprehensive at what I will find.

Graveside

It feels like the springtime. I can't be sure, the skies are gray and the air is damp. I tell by the smell that it is the mountains of West Virginia.

I am in a trailer/shack that is neat and well kept. There is white and off white walls and sheer white drapes billowing from an open window. I am sitting in a room. Other events have happened previous to this, but I can't recall what they are.

I seem to have seen them outside the window. Different activities and different times. All of them involved PJK I am in PJK's room though she is dead. Has been for a long time. The other events are either memories I have had of her or dream events she was actually in. Either way she is gone now, and I lament her loss.

From the wall there is a hand three time the scale of a normal hand, connected to an arm that is all made from very crude looking thick basket wicker. I touch it and it is old and decrepit and breaks a little with my touch. It sadly hangs at an angle that seems lifeless, now. I smell the scent of bacon grease from hundreds of previous breakfasts wafting coldly in the air.