Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Too Soon

   I think there are about five people who know that I've been writing. Even less are the ones who know that I've been writing something particularly long, and that I've kept at it for a while. I'm writing about Judy. And the reason I'm telling you about her is because she is composition of extremities. The secret is, that Judy is a hyperbole of myself.
   The thing about Judy, is that she constantly feels unfinished. Judy can't walk half a mile without stopping somewhere in the middle, just because she doesnt feel like she should go ahead. She definitely can, thats not the situation. The situation is that Judy is continuously worried about the curb at the end of the street and when she should be there. She realizes that there's a difference between where she can be, and where she should be. And as she watches her friend cross the street, and call her over to the other side, she cant help but feel like its too soon to reach the curb, too soon to cross the street. Judy ends up standing in the middle of the sidewalk, breathing slowly, because she simply cannot let go. She can't leave.
   I sometimes feel like I'm the only Judy in the world. It sounds very stupid to say. Someone very special showed me this tape a while ago and I had a dream about that tape. I'm learning to drive now, so it makes a bit of sense that in the dream I was sitting in the front seat of an automobile on this wide open road. In the dream, this very special person gave me the cassette to borrow before I left to get in the car, and after what looked like a million miles of driving, I pulled over into this wide open field of grass that was covered in all these bunches of leaves, red ones, and yellow ones, and orange, and brown. It was very cold too as it seems to me now that I must have been in the Midwestern U.S. or somewhere in New England in the fall.
   I didn't just pull into the field, I drove right through it, all the way to what seemed to be back, or what seemed to be the end. I can't remember now whether it was a cemetary or a haunted forest but I'm not too much of a morbid person so we'll go with the haunted forest. Anway, I stop right before this haunted forest and I leave the key in the ignition, only I open the door and I get out. The car isnt running but the radio is still on, so I lean in through the window, which was rolled down, and I put in that tape I was telling you about. I turn the sound down real low, but not too low, and I just stand there next to the car. And I get these damn binoculars out, and I start looking at the sky. I'm wearing this great big pilot's jacket that belongs to my pop, and I'm just standing there, up against the car, looking at the sky, at the edge of a field in the fall that leads to this forest full of blackness. I'm completely alone, besides that tape.
    The tape is that of a broadway musical, not one that I'm crazy about because after all, it is a broadway musical. But it makes me feel alright because of the person who let me borrow it. As I'm looking up at the sky and I see clouds beginning to form.
    The wind blows extremely hard and I hold the binoculars to my face with fortitude. I'm almost blown away as the wind sweeps millions of leaves off the groud and into the black forest, but I stay. I didnt hold onto the car or the ground, but I held on to myself and I did so with great toil.
   The wind blows even harder now, and the binoculars are swept from my hands and and hang by their tie around my neck. I shove my hands in my pockets as best I can and the binoculars are hanging around my neck by a thread.  I close my eyes and they break from my neck and fly westward into the forest. Leaves are quickly swept across the field. I'm closing my eyes strongly now and hold on to myself even tighter, this is perhaps the most memorable part of the dream. I plant myself so firmly next to the car that I'm not swept away.
   And suddenly, it begins to rain. I open my eyes and I promise myself not to cry although, I cant seem to remember if I did or not. There was water coming down my face anyway. First the rain comes down in drops of water but as time goes on, the water grows less and less and the rain turns into hail. The clouds grow grayer, and the landscape goes from soft orange to dark blue and gray. The clouds begin to hail little metal diamonds. They came down fast and hard and when they hit me, they stuck to my jacket and they were all over my hair. I didn't try to pick them out though. There would've been no point. This is when I begin to breathe slowly.
   The thing is, I didnt move. That was really it. I just stood there, the tape was still playing. I could've gotten in the car and driven back. I could've gone back home, taken off my clothes, I could've been dry under the roof. I could have been somewhere else. But whether good or bad, the thought of being in some place, completely different than where I was then, scared the hell out of me. I didn't want to get in the car, and I didn't want to go home. I wasn't ready. It was just too soon.
   The last thing I remember is a clear picture of myself between the black forest and the car. The rain is coming down harder than ever. The tape is rolling and I'm standing still with metal diamonds stuck in my hair and on my jacket. Immersed in one moment.