The trees show a path between the trunks and I follow. In the midst of a clearing there's a carving of a wooden rabbit. On it is a note that seems to have been left recently, since it's stuck to the rabbit with the leftovers of a melty red popsicle. I struggle to pull the note from the popsicle without getting red goop on my shirt. Somewhere in the woods I swear I hear someone snickering.
"GIANT LIGHTER - $4.50"
The note is a receipt. I look down at the wooden rabbit. It seems to be facing the moon with a great despair. Why'd they have to carve it to look so sad? I look up at the moon, and I can barely see it through the clouds. There's a smokiness that suggests maybe it's not clouds but a campfire smoke.
I realize I haven't seen my friends in a couple hours. Feeling my pockets, I grapple at something oblong and plasticky. It's the novelty lighter.
Love the details in this: "plasticky"; "There's a smokiness that suggest maybe it's not clouds but a campfire smoke" (love that line"; and, of course, "grapple."
ReplyDeleteWas this a real dream? It reminds me of the names I would sometimes write based off real dreams (usually in my early college period).
And having just listened to the first disc of Sunrise by Elvis, which is paradoxically full of nighttime and moon imagery, this definitely struck a note for that reason with its imagery.
Also, Popsicles. Did we eat as much of those as kids as I remember? Or do I just eat a lot of them now and assume I did also as a child?
We ate many, many popsicles. The lighter came from some birthday that Colin bought for someone, maybe Ryan, and not all that long ago I think. The rest may have come from a dream or something like it. And I may have been inspired by your stream-of-consciousness dream-type names. This one just felt like some kind of substance-influenced person slowly realizing they'd already been in that spot before, wandering lost somewhere. And you gotta have that moon there. It also sounds like I need to listen to Sunrise by Elvis.
DeleteYour description of it as someone who slowly realizes they've been there before made the name even creepier and better. And, come to think of it, my dream-names (again, I don't remember doing too many of them before college, because by the time we were writing names on lists in school, there's no way I'd actually remember any dream I had, plus that's not exactly the type of name you'd write to crowd-please, which was the nature of writing on high school lists mostly) were possibly subconsciously influenced by some of your further-out-there HS names. Seems like something like would've written earlier than anyone else. And, of course, there were the names Greg wrote at his house, which were also very dream-like, but in insanely funny ways. Crazy shit.
Delete