America
starts to feel the tab of acid she had put on her tongue kick in
hoping for a revelation or at least a few moments of surrender. In
her mind now crawling with bizarre and insane thoughts of mundane and
profound nature, she feels the breath of doom brush the back of her
neck. It tickles a little, you know, feels like the breath of a lover
and she presses her hand there on her neck longingly, smiling.
There's a sound to the feeling of it, a playful sound, playful like
the breath of a lover on the back of your neck, a tinkling sound
maybe like finger bells?
I've
come unhinged, she thinks, throwing back her head and laughing out
loud.
I
feel like I’m not functioning at a very high level these days, she
continues her thinking out loud speaking to no one in a high pitched
voice that rises a little hysterically at the end. America laughing
at the understatement of it all, laughing a little too hard a little
too long – American can't stop laughing but really, really, if you
think about it, it's pretty funny, right?
Sometimes
you have to laugh, she reassures herself, sighing heavily.
She
thinks a little wildly - O, wow, feels like I just need to sit down
and really relax for while a while. Maybe out in the mountains along
a stream or something or maybe out on the ocean or on the shore along
the beach somewhere where the waves are washing up rhythmically - you
know? somewhere peaceful and quiet. Yeah, that sort of vibe right
there, that's the ticket.
But
the fantastic, carnival pace of free market capitalism and its
attending political theater of the absurd demand virtually the
opposite from her. It demands war, actually, lots and lots of war,
continuous, unending war. America had gone for all her life but a
mere handful of years without some of that war and even in those
times of brief respite, she still had felt war baring down upon her.
She feels the full weight of it, this ponderous momentum of war that
is not a drum beat, no not all all, rather a mind numbing thumping as
if an elephant the size of a continent were stomping the ground right
next to where she is standing. After hundreds of years of war,
America feels so achingly sick of war that she can barely bring
herself to get out of bed in the morning.
And
the noise! The noise was the worst of it all, America, looking all
around her desperately now, not hearing that feeling of doom as a
lover's playful breath on the back of her neck and not hearing that
feeling as the light tinkling of finger bells but rather as a
thunderous cacophony of millions of people telling so many lies and
all at once all speaking so loudly and so goddamn fast that the
sound of it seems to travel right through her bones in painful
vibration following her anywhere she might choose to go?
I'll
go mad! She wonders – no wait a minute, wait a minute … I've
already gone mad shit that should be obvious to anyone paying any
attention at all … throwing her head back again and laughing out
loud, laughing insanely, tears streaming down her face. That's what
anyone watching would think, just another totally deranged woman
wandering aimlessly alone through New York City laughing insanely
tears streaming down her sad face. Nothing to see here, people - move
along now, move along.
America’s
eyes glow as if inner lit, beaming crazily like the headlights of
cars on the crowded city street at dusk. She had eaten at least a
1000 mics of some really nice, clean acid maybe an hour ago and
America is peaking out now. She feels fully how lost she has been
caught up in the pace of it all and how impossible it is to pull
herself out of the narrow, noisy, metallic stream that seems to rush
her along with it at ridiculously, preposterously increasing speeds.
She sits down on an empty bench watching the throngs jitterbug past
her in a kaleidoscope of whirling, streaming colors all running
together in fantastical motion.
Suddenly
America, eyes beatifically closed, feels that she is merely a Dove
cooing softly high up in a branch under the friendly auspices of a
warm, afternoon sun and she puts her head back this time not laughing
but smiling ... I am only a Dove, yes, just sitting peacefully here
in this warm, afternoon sun, actually feeling the sun warm on her
upturned face and neck as the nearest streetlight kicks on in the
last faint glow of dusk.
Ah,
but the peace and stillness she craves seems such a tenuous dream, so
hard to hold on to it, but she tries keeping her eyes tight and
insisting that the thing I am is a Dove, just a lone Dove, quiet and
soft and real. But America can't quite shake that underlying feeling
that is more like a racehorse pumped up on amphetamines and steroids,
eyes rolling around in its head, nostrils flaring, heart pounding
like a freight train in its chest, running faster and faster, over
these many decades until in the midst of an unholy cacophonous
outrage of lies and commerce, America finds herself now running flat
out as hard as she possibly can run simply to stay in the same place.
I
must embrace this gaudy merry go round if I want to really milk this
trip for all its worth, America insists to herself with a sudden,
blinding flash of clarity. The wars O the wars! … they are so very
far away, after all? And the needless, hopeless suffering of the
masses that will wait, won't it? I mean, where are they to go, their
wretchedness stretching now as it does from sea to shining sea? Right
now these colors are so bright and so clear and so beautiful and the
walls are breathing in concert with my breath in this lovely,
syncopated harmony and PLEASE Dear God Almighty PLEASE! for just one
moment in time let me forget all about the abuses of men ...
