Tumbleweeds in my Mind

Somehow, I feel both secure in their wispy clutches, and yet terrified at their ethereal nothing hold on me as I fall deeper into the depths of my subconscious...

To sleep, perchance NOT to dream...

But no.

Two riders are approaching. The wind begins to howl. The beautiful Hendrix guitar solo fades into a muzak version with the lead part played on a saxophone long ago made into a eunuch. The riders dismount, and approach on foot, one from the east, one from the west. The clouds scurry out of their paths, as if aware of something they dare not touch. A solemn gray light breaks upon their faces.

"Mom", I croak to the west. "Dad", I whisper to the east. They speak no word, but move forward, nonchalantly, purposefully, until they are nose to nose inside me. Each has an ear located just in front and to the outside of one of my eyes.

Their words rend the nightscape. Each pulls my youngest sister from a convenient pocket [1], and proceeds to whack the other's face with her. She resembles an overwashed turnip intestine, except that she has Farrah Fawcett-Majors' left ankle, which I find frenetically obtuse in such a bituminous teenager. Soon, my hair begins to boil, causing the horses to blow away in the heated vapors escaping from my nostrils. Fish scales fly from their hands, and little scarab beetles pop into existence, scurry over and eat the scales, and pop back out of existence.

Chipped cubes, pyrotechnic pyramids, and deadly dodecahedrons fly hither and yon inside my cranium, chipping the chrome from the walls. Little bits and pieces of genetic material melt loose from my brain lobes and scurry into cracks, while nerve endings crawl back down my spinal column, seeking safety and peace.

Bits of bloody turnip intestine cling inside my eyeballs, making my vision tenuous, at best. An unknown Beethoven symphony swells hugely in my prostate, bursting into dead flowers at my feet.

Aliens writhe unbidden from my jaws and navel, while octopus weeds wrap themselves violently about my ribcage, pulsating to the wild beat of the tympanis. Oboes shrill their furious squeals until my eardrums pop, wreaking havoc on the planetary pressure system, which begins to pulsate from 0 to 2 atmospheres at the same rate as my now berserk heart. Sweat pours from my eyebrows as all meters are pegged in the red; the noise level inside my head reaches the volume of a Saturn V engine at the nozzle on takeoff.

Just before the universe explodes, I wake, drenched, on the waterbed, alone, hearing hoofbeats and sad, but maniacal, laughter echoing away on the street outside, fading at a furious pace. The moonbeams slide lazily about the curtains, as they lightly leap in the gentle breeze that wanders through the open windows. A shadow - a bat, perhaps - flits by and is gone.

All is silent, save my heartbeat in my ears, at about 140 beats a minute.

According to the clock, I have been asleep twelve minutes. Only six hours and fourty-eight minutes until time to get up.

Oh boy.

--

[1] What effect this has upon her psyche or the space-time continuum, I have no idea.

Last updated: 6 May 1994

Copyright 1989, 1994 Miles O'Neal, Austin, TX. All rights reserved.

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