-------------- BEGIN dream-flow.v001.n101 --------------
001 - "Wilkerson, Richard" <rcw - the 650 beemer
002 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Re: Digest dream-flow.v001.n100
Electric Dreams: Dream Flow
A fountain of dreams in Cyberspace
--------------- MESSAGE dream-flow.v001.n101.1 ---------------
From: "Wilkerson, Richard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: the 650 beemer
Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 10:15:04 -0700
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Note: Stan requests his name and email be kept with the dream report -
thanks - Richard
DATE : 25 may 1999 05:12
DREAM : the 650 beemer
=( i taught my programming course, the late evening course. did not get
home until 21:45. just caught the end of _cleopatra_ movie. made myself a
sandwich and watched _back to the future 2_ on video tape. went to bed
around midnight and read _the stainless steel rat_ until about 02:00. had
no trouble getting to sleep. )=
it feels good to be riding on my 650 cc bmw cruiser. the black polished
metal of the gas tank between my legs, the chrome streak of the handle bars
coming up to where my hands are twisting the grip and levers to squeeze the
juice into the engine. the deep bup bup bup of those exhaust pipes that
seems to go on forever as the landscape glides by dissolving in the
constant blur of motion. yes, nothing feels as good riding the bmw.
but eventually even the eternal has to change. i come through the pine
forest to the little unpaved lane that leads back to the church.
reluctantly i pull the bike over to the side, put down the kick stand, and
switch off the key. the bmw stops its life, not like something dying which
struggles to live for more breath, but the bike just stops like its death
is just as natural and as common as its animation. perhaps it is. i get
off the motorcycle with some regret.
the church is a little pine building in a little pine forest. many
parishioners, perhaps thirty in all, are already gathered up in the pews
inside. singing nearer my god to thee mostly off key and flat, but god
doesn't seem to care how good or how poor the music is. god just wants the
music and the faith and the worship. he must not have enough from the
angels and the deceased souls. he always likes more.
every one looks at me as i try to slip into a pew well over on the side by
the wall, but the place is much too small and too simple for anyone to be
unnoticed. i do not like to sing but will join when someone is looking my
way. today everyone is here to listen to my report on my trip to
australia. they are going to be disappointed. god was there just like he
is here. never really directly there, just always somewhere on the edges
of experience, just over the line where we can not sense him directly but
surely just there, breathing heavily and watching everything we do or even
think. like moby dick, we search and search for god, always believing he
is near, but never seeing him face to face like real things. giving him
total credit for anything good that happens in our lives and crying 'why
god why' when something bad happens. and god never shows himself direct
except maybe to some primitive nomads thousands of years gone, or maybe
when we have crossed over into death ourselves like that great white whale
come to ahab only when he is out on the water too far to get back to ship.
who can tell when only the dead can see god direct? maybe even they don't.
well, when the singing is done, they ask me to tell them about the presence
of the divine in australia, and i start in on the tale of the white whale.
at first everyone listens really close but little by little i can see them
one by one start thinking other things than what i say. it must be that
anything i can report about deity down under is mostly contained in the
first few syllables and leaks out quickly. very soon everyone is satisfied
that what we do not see of god up here is just like what they do not see
down there. and that is how it should be. omnipresence means just the
same everywhere. it would be difficult if there were a mountain somewhere
where heaven was closer, more real than anywhere else. they seem to like
it when i chant a little sea ditty i learned from quequake, but the few who
stay listening more intently than the others are not happy with me. they
want me to reaffirm what they believe and instead i am talking about some
big albino fish and nautical lore. clearly there is some sacrilege in
discussing the meaning of life with a cetacean.
as displeased as the bright ones are and disinterested as the rest, i
finish my report on oz and get up to leave. a few mumble polite words of
thanks without any thought. my legs are not well coordinated as i get up.
rather than think of anything to repair my reputation with these church
folk, i step outside the building and find a cut stump that i can stand on.
this allows me to reach the several strands of plastic clothes line that
are stretched through the trees overhead. no one does laundry here, just
the lines have been strung up so the children at vacation bible school can
hang their crayon pictures of the good things their parents like to see. i
can not fashion a noose from any of the clothes lines, but i can clench one
taunt wire under my chin and step off the log to hang by my neck.
it feels good in that moment of stepping off the stump. the wire bites
briefly into my throat so i can not inhale. there is no pressure in back
to break the neck but i do not mind. the slower way of suffocating is just
as good as the faster way of spinal cord separation. i really do not care
about dying, i just mean to reaffirm life by leaving it. who cares if this
is not exactly sensible to the congregation inside? it is my life and my
motorcycle and my white whale. let them find their own way to that place
where moby dick finally rushes headlong straight at you, opening his blunt
toothed mouth. no more hiding or seeking. there is no despair or
resignation, just the intrigue of expectation for the tunnel of light.
i do not know what i expected, but you can not hang yourself on a clothes
line. after a brief sensation of strangulation the line bounces back
upwards. like a bow string, i find myself being shot away upwards like
arrow. man, am i disappointed as i sail past the windows on the side of
the church.
and down the hillside. through the trees trunks, sliding and rolling and
sliding. sometime on my back, sometime on my face. it seems to go on
forever. i keep sliding and sliding and sliding. does this slope go on
forever? my cheekbone hits a rock. my back bounces off a pine. perhaps
this is just as good as hanging. i start to enjoy the feel of skidding
into things as the rush downward continues. sadly, i notice the velocity
start to diminish slightly, but like zeno's paradox, half a reduction still
leaves half. i slide out of the forest hillside into the fields. with the
last of my inertia, i see some children. at least i see their shoes as i
skid by them. why can't i look up and see their faces?
finally i stop with my shoulder against the last tree. i was hoping the
motion would go on forever. but everything changes eventually. so here i
am, lying on my chest and face, bunched up at the last tree. i feel good.
think i will just lay here. my breath is regular, unhurried. my heart
beat is strong. my eyes blink when they need to. i am unconcerned that i
may not be able to get up if i tried. i will just lay here and look out
across the ground at the shoes of the children. one of the children comes
over and puts her face next to ground right in front of me so i can see
half of her face directly. i think i might just say something to her, or
wink or something, but she goes away as quickly as she came.
eventually you would think that i would get tired of laying in this spot in
what must be an uncomfortable position, but i do not. it is good to just
lay here. when i am not looking at the ground and that swell way
perspective makes distant things small and near things big, i can listen to
squeal of nerve activity in the back of the head. it is strange secret
sound that i never heard very clearly until just now. i am really content
to lay here and look and listen. why would i want any more?
oh. now church people are starting to show up. i can tell by their
bigger shoes, mostly brown. well, maybe they will go away and lose
interest quickly like they do in their services. they do.
but too soon after that, the vibrations in the ground coming up my left
cheek bone tell me a large rolling vehicle has arrived. i can feel the
rubber wheels pop and plunk over pebbles and wooden sticks. dirty white
sneakers then khaki knees fold up in front of me. a pretty paramedic
kneels down to look in my eyes. with a small pen light she shines into my
eyes, the right then the left. "dilated, no reflex" she says. she is
pretty. i wonder if she has a boy friend.
she reaches up and is given a white plastic collar which carefully slips
around my neck. too soon it tightens a little too snug. i think i might
tell her that this is too tight and my chin is a little abraded by the edge
of the collar, but i decide not to. she probably knows what she is doing.
six, no, eight hands take a firm grip on my legs and arms and head. in one
motion i can feel body raise, straighten and roll over. the stiff wooden
board they lay me on feels pretty good. my neck and shoulders are
carefully pressed into a larger foam contrivance i can not see. but it
feels good too. half of a helmet comes down over my head and is clamped to
the wooden board under me. a tube with a spray of cold air is forced past
my teeth. i had not noticed that they were clenched but it with some
difficulty that this tube is roughed into my mouth. i do not care for the
feel of it and the cold stream of air pouring down my throat. but i decide
not to complain about it. a clear plastic face shield clicks down on the
helmet. now i am ready to ride again, i think.
the board is lifted unsteadily at first. pine tree stretching upwards.
clouds. blue sky. the sun. the roof of an ambulance. bottles and white
paper wrappers in shelves along the sides. a brief compression as the rear
doors slam. a little jiggling as the driving starts. i get an itch on my
back just below the right shoulder. my nose has an irritation but i do not
sneeze. the cold dry hiss of the air in my throat from that tube is the
harshest annoyance.
i do not know how i get anywhere anymore. just one moment i am somewhere,
then another moment i am somewhere else. i seem to remember a phase of
life in which there was a causal connection between these somewheres, but i
am beyond all that now. i would explain this to the people in those
somewheres, but i do not bother. i do not speak anymore because i really
have nothing i want to say. i said it all once and if they did not listen
then that is their loss. my breath is regular, unhurried. my heart beat is
strong. my eyes blink when they need to. i feel good.
some kind of hospital ward. nurses in light blue polyester jackets. bland
concrete walls, beige i think. several of them could be quite attractive
if they just thought about it. the nurses, i mean, not the walls. the
nurses could be attractive if they tried.
getting dressed. i think i must spend a lot of time getting garments put
on my body. clothes on. clothes off. clothes on. clothes off. why do we
bother changing the fabrics around our skin? i would be happier and more
comfortable just hanging around naked. i suppose we should call it nude,
not naked. sounds more polite. clothes on. clothes off. in the brief
periods of clothes off, about one in ten, i get a messy sponge bath. cold
drips running down my skin and never enough care given to the places that
need it the worst. i can not remember the last time i felt like i had a
clean asshole. just clothes on to cover it up.
now this is better. i am sitting in a bar. a nice home like place, not
too clean. neon lights on the wall. that nurse in civilian dress is
flirting with that ambulance driver. someone has put a cold bottle of beer
in my hand. the cold is a little annoying, but it soon warms. i used to
like the taste of beer. even now the smell is good. country music on the
juke box. maybe the nurse will get lucky tonight. it is good to sit here
with a bottle of beer in your hand. i won't bother to drink it. that
would spoil the mood. my breath is regular, unhurried. my heart beat is
strong. my eyes blink when they need to.
back at the dayroom. clothes on. shoe untied, but i do not bother to bend
over to tie it. i will just sit here and look at those fools in the
wheelchairs. i may be in a wheel chair but i do not care to look.
back at the bar again. midafternoon this time. i think i like hanging out
here the best. a heavy set chinese man comes in with a very thin woman.
they say hello to me like we are old friends. i do not remember them. the
man goes over to the bar tender to order some drinks. the skinny woman
kisses me on the cheek. the chinaman comes back and puts a cold beer
bottle in my hand. i will just hold it for a while and the chinaman
whispers something in the woman's ear and does something with his hand
under her dress. she laughs.
in the bar again. i know i must like this place to show up here so often.
a man with a scraggily beard and leather vest comes over to me. he seems
to have drank a little too much. he takes the full bottle out of my hand
and replaces it with his empty one. that is good. glad to share. a full
one will appear in that hand soon enough. he leans real close to me and
starts talking. his breath smells bad, but i do not fuss about it.
"hey man, i know where your beemer is. i saw it the other day. this guy
has it in a garage across town. i know it is yours because of that scratch
across the tank. now i know you did not sell it to him. am i right?
don't say anything if i am right."
i do not say anything.
"ok, so i plan that we go get your bike back. have to steal it, but he
must have stole from you so that's fair. tomorrow i will come and get you
and we will go over to that garage and get it. won't it be good to be on
your ride again?"
it is my bmw. i had not thought it might be, but there are all those
little personal marks and dents collected over the miles and years. the
cracks in the leather seat, the speckling of rust in the chrome. i wonder
how it got in this garage. someone must have taken it from the church yard.
mister leather vest grabs it by the handlebars like a greek dancer takes
the horns of a bull. he wrestles it this way and that until he gets it up
the ramp onto his pickup truck. the beemer never struggled with me that
way, but that is probably from long experience and familiarity. its
horizontal block like extended lungs gleam invitingly, eager to breathe again.
vest jumps back into the cab of the truck beside me. a car pulls in the
alley from the opposite end. he cranks over the engine but it does not
start. again the starter motor just whines. the car gets closer.
finally, on the third try the truck comes to life and we make away down the
alley with my motorcycle. 650 cc bmw cruiser.
=( i wake. the clock says 04:47. i have been sleeping on my belly with my
neck bunched up on the pillow. it feels like the same position with the
tree trunk in the dream after the downhill slide. i must have lain this
way for a while as i feel stiff and sore when i roll over. that probably
explains the paralysis in the dream. i usually roll around a lot when i
sleep. god, the whale and the bmw come from somewhere else. )=
. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
=== qui non est hodie cras minus aptus erit
| | who not is today, tomorrow less suitable will be
--- -- Ovid _Remedia Amoris_ i 94
--------------- MESSAGE dream-flow.v001.n101.2 ---------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Digest dream-flow.v001.n100
Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 20:47:54 EDT
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peace had lain to the right of the small area if you had avoided becoming
"naked"
more at www.dreamgate.com./dream/dubetz/
--------------- END dream-flow.v001.n101 ---------------
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