Balls Capone

Dream adventures like little short films in a row, some of which I've had before, others are different, some are different events taking place in the same dream city or landscape, others are completely new, some are like watching a dream of a dream or a movie inside of a movie.  

Where actually am I?  I was down there deep, peeling back the layers of my ancient dream world, a place like no other.

World No. 1.

I'm at a party at a house that looks like its enclosed in some sort of cave or underground.  The people at this party are dicks, they don't like me, and are super unfriendly, but for some reason I'm staying at this party.  

It's usually because of some dream girl that I'm trying to find at this place because I know she is in danger from these assholes at this party house.  But I can't find her, yet I feel like I have to protect her from something.  But she never believes me and runs and hides.  It’s a very frustrating place, why do I even care anymore?  I  suddenly come to realization that I really don’t care anymore, why should I?  And who cares what these shitty people think, so I see myself out of this pit via the stairway.  

At the top of the stairs is a glowing street lamp and a sidewalk running through an enclosed room that is painted all black, it reminds me of a movie set made to look like night time on a neighborhood street corner, yet there are discarded film reels all over the ground here, and I’m stepping on them, crunching someones precious memories.

I look down and I can see a few frames of a smiling woman dressed in clothes from times long gone.  Who’s memories are these?  I pick up the reel and hold it up to the light to see more, I am now part of the reel, but the memories are not my own, at least not from this life time.

World No. 2.

This seems to be a snippet of locations from all the different moves I've done in my life, but this one is new to me.  It is particularly disturbing, as we are moving into this shit hole of a house in a very shitty neighborhood.  It's always dark inside this house, even with the windows open, it just feels awful in there, like standing in a crowded room with too many people, but there is no one there.  At least no one you can see.

My room is this dark cave of a place with no windows, the walls are covered in an ugly blue plaid wallpaper and the floor is adorned with dirty old blue shag carpet.  There are no scary images, nothing appears, or seems out of place, but it sure feels like someone may have been murdered in here.  There is a crushing weight to the air in here, it makes me tired, slow, and weak.  I feel like I just want to sleep, but I never really can.

I just want to flee from this house of unseen horrors, but it's where I have to live now, I have no other choice, and there is plaque on the wall that actually says in gold letters, "GET USED TO IT!”

I lay on my old squeaky bed and the ceiling falls down on me.

World No. 3.

Here we have an encounter with an old flame from my ancient world, it’s already an uncomfortable setting.  I’m in the living room at my Uncle John’s house with a few people sitting in the room with us, no one is really talking, and everyone is smoking.  It’s hard to see through the clouds and I can't tell really who they are, I know one is her friend "Linda."  

So this girl comes over and sits right on my lap, putting her arms around me.  It felt right, so I follow suit and put my arm around her.  She looks over and starts to kiss me, it feels pretty good, this could go enjoyable places.  But suddenly then she jerks back, looks at me with furious eyes, and jumps off my lap in a rage.  

"I thought we talked about this already, we're just friends!", she bellows at me as I wipe her spit from my face.  

"Well what was all that about then?", I inquire.  "A friendship make out session?"

She doesn't answer the question, she rolls her eyes and charges out the door with Linda in tow.  As they leave Linda spins around while going out the door and says, 

"Oh, and don't ever call her again......."

Fine.  No Problem.  See you in Hell.

World No. 4.

I'm standing in a recording studio next to a guy on a computer, it's no one I know, just some young guy and he's really good at what he does.  We're trying to get his computer hooked up to my Tape Machine.  It's a big awesome Studer deck and I'm super excited to get it working. This guy is a real big help, yet I have no idea who he is or why he is even there. He pugs in a blue cable into the back of the machine, gives me five, and says,

”You're in business, buddy!"

I head out of the control room to inform my band we can now start recording on tape, as I walk out the door the floor vanishes and I plunge down into white clouds.

World No. 5.

Now I'm suddenly making sandwiches in a bright orange kitchen.  The floor is orange the walls are orange, the counter tops are light orange, everything is fucking orange.  I feel like I'm being watched, on display for something or someone, but there is no one else in this kitchen with me.  Yet, I've made three sandwiches already that I don't remember making.  The bread bag had a sun symbol on it and it was called "Ray's Light Boy Bread."  

I would take two slices out, put some mayo one on side, and some mustard on the other.  Then I would plop on one slice of what I guess was bologna or some other kind of packaged meat product.  Then, behind me I would hear the floor squeak and creak like someone was walking up behind me, but when I'd turn around, there was no one there.  It was like being on a TV set, being filmed by an invisible camera crew filming the worlds most boring reality TV show.

I finish the last sandwich and set them individually on bright yellow plates and serve them to no one at the table, which was painted like a giant orange slice.  The sandwiches were lackluster and I ate alone, watching the tail of the orange kitty cat clock on the wall swing ever back and forth, the rhythmic tick tock putting me into a hazy trace like state.  The world goes blurry and I fall backwards in my chair.

World No. 6.

It's a visit to crazy town!  I’ve been here before many times, nothing here ever makes any sense, it's like the handkerchief of my brain after it hocks up a big brain loogie.  There is a Texaco station in my front yard and a giant orange pool ball with a number 7 on it rolls around it, orange and yellow planes fly through the dimly lit brownish sky shooting bright red and green lasers at each other.  Day and night come and go in seconds here, the light and dark constantly flashing like a strobe light above you.

There are bikes scattered about, old ones from my childhood, but none of them work and turn into dust when you try and pick them up.  They are appearances only, non-functional memory units.  My house is painted like fruit stripe gum and now I have roller-blades on, but the wheels are square, real useful.  The flowers are candy canes, the trees are made of some kind of frozen green liquid and when you try and touch them they shatter into millions of sharp green shards with flavor so intense they will cut your sense of taste like a razor blade.  Hey, here comes Mario and Luigi down the street, but the street is now a level from Super Mario Brothers 1.  Mario turns to wave to me, but doesn’t see the pit in front of him, he falls down the pit to his splattering death.  Now Luigi is pissed and is coming to get me, he thinks it my fault his brother splattered, but he runs into a big green pipe that suddenly juts out of my lawn and he too, falls down the pit to his doom.  The evil King Koopa appears in the castle and breaths fire upon the poor captive Princess Peach, who collapses into a heap of sizzling digital bones. Game over, I guess.

I look back toward the house and now there are slinky's going up and down the front steps, a large river now runs by the side of my striped candy like house and a pink boat appears out of the mist.  It's Lord Licorice from the old CandyLand board game, I gotta get outta here, he's a dick, but now I’m stuck in Gloppy’s molasses swamp, slowly sinking into the sticky brown mire.

This is a confusing and annoying place, I don’t much care for it, so I willingly let myself get sucked down into the swamp.  There is finally peace and darkness here.

World No. 7.

I now hear voices from long ago, flashes of my ancient past, old houses, pets, bikes, schools yards, friends long gone, and then old broken and forgotten memories in giant piles, awaiting the crusher of my mind. I stepped out of the way as big trucks came in with trailers filled with rusty broken memories, long forgotten and left to rust on the plains of my consciousness. Big black loader machines roared as they moved the disheveled memories from the trailers and sorted them into various piles for recycling.

The ground was black and muddy, the sky a strange dark orange like a polluted city sunset during winter. There were two of those giant flare fire stacks in the background with giant flames erupting from the top. The air smelled metallic and acidic, it was hard to walk through the heavy black mud, giant tire tracks from the big machines going every which way, the bottoms filled with dirty oily water. It seemed like everywhere I went, I was in the way. I felt like I wasn't supposed to be here, like I was intruding, but the dirty workers in their orange hard hats seemed fine with just ignoring my presence.

I was strangely overdressed for the occasion. I had a really nice white suit on with a red bow tie, I looked like Colonel Sanders. I was trying not to get mud all over my nice clean suit, but there was nothing I could do, it was everywhere and all over everything. It was a very uncomfortable feeling. Who wears a suit to the junk yard?

That was it, I was in the junkyard of my own thoughts. That's when I was approached by an old wrinkly man in a blue work shirt that kept asking me if I needed some parts. 

"Parts for what?", I asked. 

"New memories", he exclaimed at me with a smirk, like he couldn't believe I didn't already know this. 

"What, you think you get an endless supply or somethin'?", "You gotta recycle, son!", he said to me as he moved a pile of rusty mental mufflers.

I looked up and above me was a giant machine taking old memories from a conveyor belt and would then melt them down with beams of blue energy. It had the most ominous sound to it, the whole thing made me very nervous. The molten memories would then slide down into a holding tank for further purification at the refineries churning away in the background.

I was a little taken aback, what a process, but the old man looked at me like I was a total moron, probably because it's MY own junkyard, he's just an employee and I come bumbling in every now and again like a drunk with fruit fly memory and he has to keep explaining it over and over to me. He looked a little tired of it, so he walked over to a little shack with a glowing control panel, waved at me, and hit some buttons on the panel and away I went.

World No. 8

I was now a man named Delvin Zachary Williams, but folks just called me “DZ.”  I was a dream world cab driver. I would pick up dreamers that needed to get from one world to another. Most dreamers didn't know they were dreaming and I liked to keep it that way. Why not wake them up?

Because, the first thing 90% of dreamers do when awakened in the dream word is to start trying to bang everything they can think of and it fills my cab with boobs, butts, and ball sacks and everything in between. A very messy and unpleasant business that. So I prefer they stay how they come, floating in their own little world thinking they're going about their normal lives, kind of like NPC characters in a video game. 

It was a normal night out on dream town, until I picked up a dreamer off of West Vermin Avenue, it’s down in West Crackpipington and I’m not a giant fan of this side of town. But he was different then the usual crank dreamer from this side of the tracks. He was awake. He had a powerful look in his eyes, different from the rest. 

He asked me if I had ever died in a dream. Well yeah, who hasn't? He asked me how many times and I told him it was just too many to count. He smiled this strange smile and said, "it's been millions of times for me."

Then he put his hand on my shoulder and a creepy rush went through my body as he sat back and said, 

"Oh, my friend, the things you have coming, oh the things, so much more to do", “and in a way I envy you my friend, as that was over a long time ago for me." 

"what do you mean by that?", I asked him. 

He just smiled and said, "you'll see........you'll see, just let me out right here." 

So I complied and pulled it over. The man got out and disappeared into the darkness near Acer Lane. It left me with a good feeling though, so I went to go pick up my next fare.

World No. 9

I’m slowly and steadily spelunking into the cave of an uncomfortable buzzing. I don't much care for this atmosphere. The air down here is busy and a little bit thicker. It's tough to put my finger on it. My chest is as hollow as this feeling is.

The rocks below are glazed with uncertainty and a dank dampening fear sets the mood.  But all in all it's a bit comforting, this closeness of walls.  I seem to be running from nothing for nothing, but running all the same. The lingering mist brushes against my face like the tongue of a hungry beast. Is it real? Do I descend into its maw unhindered? 

Go on then, monsters aren't real. Or are they? Do you really know for sure the path you take? Will you lose yourself in the lyrical labyrinth? Look, down there, foot prints, someone has been here before. Who could it be? Or am I simply just going in circles?  The rope suddenly breaks and I feel myself plunge into darkness at free fall speed.

Why I haven’t I hit bottom yet?

World No. 10.

Now it seems I was some sort of super hero.  I wore pin striped overalls with the letters "AXS" on the front, an old straw hat and no shoes.  My name was Auxiliary Stephens and I helped people out of sticky situations in amusement park ride lines.

I had just saved a group of older ladies from a bunch of rude teenagers who were talking about inappropriate things and cursing loudly.  I simply had to put my hand out toward them and tell them "CEASE" and they would vanish.  Then I asked the old ladies for a candy cane and flew back to my forest home.  I could fly in this world and that is just about the best feeling ever.  When people saw me flying over they would shout my name and call me down to join their barbecues, which seemed to happen everywhere all the time here and every one wanted Auxiliary Stephens at theirs.  

I also had super balloon animal powers.  I could make anything, I made one kid a full sized balloon piano and it even played!  Then it was off to Majestic Mountain to stop some teens from butting in line for the super coaster.  They had to be stopped!

So I pretty much just flew around and got to beat up teenagers.  Then I'd have a candy cane and be on my way.   

Auxiliary Stephens, Away!

World No. 11.

Now I'm being chased by a cougar with the face of Donald Trump.  Very frighting indeed, he chased me to this weird house that I was moving into, it had a super bad vibe, I knew there was angry spirits in this house. They began throwing red tool boxes and fire extinguishers at me. I must have had a lot of tools and really enjoyed being overly prepared for a fire, because there sure were a lot of them being thrown around.  

Then I looked out the back door and there were some people hanging out in my backyard. It was my family and Neil Young, Neil wanted to see my guitar collection, so I showed him, and he complimented me on my selection of fine guitars.  I don't think I'd ever been so happy, I felt like bursting into tears of joy. We then sat down and played Gretsch’s together.  The joy was intense!

What started off scary and lame became really cool and extremely satisfying.

But soon that faded and I was standing on a hill top, but this was no ordinary hill top.  It was grey and had green and blue bushes, it looked like one of my silly crappy MS-PAINT creations. There was a blue faced man here, he looked like he just came from a Blue Man Group cosplaying event.  He raised his arm and pointed down the hill. I looked down to see a giant fiber optic cable, or at least that’s what it looked like, maybe a mile high and a mile across.  It was transparent and every little fiber inside this massive cable had a scene from a life in it.

The blue faced man looked at me and said, 

"This is it, this is the future, our future, your future", "you may look, but it doesn't matter if you look, if you see the future, it will no longer exist."  

So if you see images of your future, the act of that happening makes that future vanish and it changes into something completely different.

 

So here I stood looking at all this future information from the conduit of eternity, and all of it is so cool, yet now completely meaningless. I suddenly burst into fits of laughter, so what was the point? It all seemed so silly and laughable now, it was just so funny to me, everything I had seen was already lost and I had considerably altered my own future and the future of the world just by simply looking what may lie ahead.  

The blue faced man just smiled and walked away. You can't know your own future, or the future of anything, as it's constantly changing, and even if you try, what you see will never be, because you saw it.

It was pretty cool, I give thanks to the blue faced man who showed me these things.  Or should I be angry with him for destroying my future and that of countless others?

Who knows, I was the one who looked after all.