Month: December 2007

my grandmother has died, and they’re having a memorial coffee at her house– when I get there with my fanily, the place is packed with people I do not know, and my family members quickly disappear into the crowds. my grief lies heavy on me, and I don’t have the emotional resources to make sense of this scene– I wander around for a time, trying to do my best, but the shock of it all quickly undoes me: the people are all incredibly fancy and highbrow and important, and it becomes swiftly evident what an important person my grandmother was in the eyes of the world– and the familiar, warm person I loved so dearly is nowhere evident– except in small familiar knick-knacks that others are pawing and taking as mementoes– I lose it at this point and start searching for my family to I can get the hell out– they drove me here, and I feel utterly dependent on them for escape– every room I enter has more mucky-mucks standing around talking about my grandmother in an urbane world context I don’t recognize and generlly being very smart and cool and alien to me– I begin to see my grandmother’s possessions and life and accomplishments in a new light, but I’m in no shape to process it– I just want my family to get me out of here– I start calling out to them, “mooooo-ooooom… daaaaa-aaaaaad!!”, quickly realizing how ineffectual these names are but keeping at it, growing desperate and plaintive. the cool people, fortunately are unflapped by my display and continue their conversations without a ripple– I go on and on, calling, searching, unable to find my family, until the place starts to clear out and I realize the only possibility is that they have left without me. I collapse into a chair, utterly abandoned, and after a bit take notice of the bright shiny folk I’ve collapsed among– they’re young and cleverly dressed and effortlessly at ease and clearly successful and wealthy and bright– a shining lot– dusty me has fallen among them for better or worse. as they rise to move along, they offer me a ride, and with mixed mortification and relief I accept– we board a dreadful concept vehicle with stadium seating and no safety whatsoever and proceed through town– we’re moving through the locales I grew up among, and I make some small comment about a change and then a heartbeat later do a double- and then triple-take and gape in utter shock as I realize how the place has been transformed– there are now elaborate undulating glass constructions, hotel megaliths, with multistorey water features lining the road– when I’m able to speack again, I exclaim, “my god! it’s like las vegas!” my companions all nod and say, “yes” and “actually, I heard a statistic the other day that the businesses here see more activity than vegas”– and a cool, unhurried, unamazed discussion ensues. I don’t begin to know where I am.

I’m back in my grandmother’s house for something, moving through those turned-strange rooms, when I run into some of the guests staying there– namely angelina jolie and her daughter and other members of her entourage– angelina glides into the room, stark naked and with perfectly astonishing globe breasts, smiles sweetly at me and says hello. my jaw must be on the persian carpet, but I stammer something out by way of a greeting. I can’t take my eyes off her, so I see how warm and honest and utterly unselfconscious she is, watch her interacting with her little daughter and am infatuated and entranced– suddenly leaving is the farthest thing from my mind– I just want to stay and stay and watch and absorb her goodness and ease– the only thing that remains somewhat disconcerting is those crazy unearthly perfect breasts.

rowing around on a dark lake with piney edges and dark, ragged, sudden dropoffs– I am a passenger, two other women at the oars, and they drive the boat into a black cave– I want them to stop, but they go further into the blackness– we can hear others up ahead in the darkness, which makes it “okay”, but I am not okay– especially when the air fills with bats or even smaller whirring things all around my head– I am panicking– and finally we go back out.

I’m flyinging high above the landscape with a plane– but somehow I’ve ended up on the outside, clinging to pillowy soft pieces on the side, watching lakes and trees pass beneath, wondering if there’s any way I might survive a fall– I keep slipping into a drowse and literally slipping, and I have to catch myself and pull back up– but then the copilot notices me clinging there and climbs out and helps me back inside the craft.

there’s a big fight between college students at the edge of a precipice, a rough chasm dropping a mile down into a glittering lake that looks modest from the height but I know is enormous and deep– they’re battling with long poles over some point of honor, and they fall over the edge in droves and fall forever, still engaged in conflict, a whole crowd of youth and potential falling so far, plummeting and disappearing without a sound into the water beneath, the lake’s gleaming surface folding cleanly over all the signs of struggle. someone erects a plaque.

there’s a woman living out in the desert, burrowed into a sandy hillside– the white earth walls are full of the tunnels and activity of small creatures, but she’s unbothered by it– they keep to themselves, she goes about her business– until some hooligans show up, a black-clad gang of them, drawn to the place– they’re spirits reanimated or reshaped into borrowed bodies by some dark force. one of them, a young woman, comes back to her after they leave to show her, tell her. the last shot is of the woman gazing out her round embedded window into the view– someone sees her from far, far away.