A Dream of Paradise

Okay, so this is the way it went down.

We were in love. Now, I know that sounds hokey and everything but it was true; I was head-over-heels in love with this dame, and as far as I was concerned she could do no wrong. She was a real warrior woman, standing tall and erect, and why in the world she had some sort of fascination for a guy like me I’ll never know, but there it was.

Anyway, we were living in some sor tof magical kingdom. No, I don’t mean the one in Orlando. I mean, we were living in some sort of place where magic and the supernatural are taken for granted. It seemed to be a spiritualist camp or religious commune, but it was staffed mainly by older people, while the younger folks wandered around in Dungeons and Dragons costumes being hippies. I know this all sounds strange but you wanted to hear the story, right?

So here I am, dressed like some sort of Teutonic knight, and I am running across this field, and Warrior woman is with me and the sun is beaming and I yell and I end up writing back to my aunt that I have finally found Middle Earth. The Warrior Woman and I know it is love at first sight, and nature seems to thank us as we crawl down deep into aq bosom of soft romance amid the tall grasses and sweeping majestic wheat of the old fields.

But this is only the outskirts of the camp, and inside is where the weird fun happens. Right away I can see that everyone around me is like a character from some fantastic novel; they are all dressed like elves, leprechauns, wandering adventurers, shit like that. The elders of the camp laugh at us from behind their withered old hands, but they leave us alone. We are the Next Generation, the ones that will be taking over the reigns, so to speak, when the old ones go off into the next dimension or whatever they do. So I am a soldier again, and I’m sleeping in these Eastern European barracks with a bunch of gromy medieval soldiers, and someone explains to me that this place is “Maintained by the counsel for any group of soldiers that just happens to be passing through.”

So maybe orcs and hobgoblins have slept here. Maybe.

Anyway, she (Warrior Woman) was there, and I can see just by the look on her face that she has no intention of two-timing me with any of these soldiers, so I feel a sharp tack of relief. Maybe that is an odd way to put it.

At any rate, we go on like this for a little while, me getting to know her fantasy hippie friends better, and all the while becoming a leaner, meaner guy, the kind of guy that really cuts an impressive figure wherever he goes. So after awhile we are all friends, and we have all shared the magic, and now I am dressed like some Dungeons and Dragons fantasy hippie, and all of a sudden Warrior Woman (who is unquestionably mine) gets the bright idea that we need to undergo some sort of special test or ritual to prove the loyalty of our friends.

So we are gathered in a kind of central park, surrounded by the buildings that actually make up the camp, and she says, “You know, what we need to do is build a castle out of wood. Then, when we have everyone gathered together, we will set the building on fire. Then we’ll see who comes to rescue us. Whadya think?”

I said I thought it sounded groovy, but, inside, I wasn’t really hep to the idea of sitting in a burning building witing for a bunch of pasty wannabe adventurers to come and save my ass. In reality I thought that sounded like a Really Bad Idea.

No matter. Construction on the fire palace began almost immediately, and I had to wonder where they found curved wood to use for the towers. Anyway, I had no intention of going through with it, but one night there was some sort of initiation which I can barely remember save that it was the entire camp assembled and Warrior Woman and I joined hands and there were people holding candles and we raised the cone of power and then everything blanks out…and I knew I was a part of it then, body and spirit, and that I damn sure would go through with it.

After all, hadn’t I met Warrior Woman while patrolling the old fields around the camp, dressed like one of the Kaiser’s own, screaming to the high heavens to bring me an enemy so I could spill its blood? Yes, indeed, the way it was, and it was this ferocious savagery that first one me the heart of Warrior Woman.

So after the initiation I started to realise that the hallways and stairways of the Fire Palace were all hobbit-sized, and that it was going to be a problem for some of these guys to get up and down them, and even worse, it was going to be a problem for us to get out of there when the whole place went up in smoke.

For some reason, though, I couldn’t let that trouble me unduly.

So we met a guy that I use to know who worked for a tobacco company, and he shakes my hand, and says “Tom and I are well-acquainted. You’re looking good, Tom.”

In truth, I was feeling good, too. Middle Earth (the camp, whatever) had been good for me, and I could feel the magic of the place rubbing off, making me over into a new being. Hell, I liked everything about it (especially Warrior Woman), liked the folksy peace of it, liked the power and tranquil majesty of the place and the fact that it seemed like anything, I mean, anything, was possible there.

So we all headed out on a highway somewhere, and I wasn’t even sure what sort of vehicles we were driving, and I was pretty upset that we seemed to be leaving Middle Earth. Maybe we were just patrolling the outer territories, though.

It was a long country road, punctuated by telephone poles, and it seemed to go off into the distance forever. We were obviously riding on Mad Max motorcycles.

I remember thinking that Warrior Woman looked to be getting younger and younger, and I wondered just how old she was, because I had never bothered to ask her her age. I wondered of she was even old enough to vote yet, but then my attention was arrested by the messages being beamed over the telephone lines as we sped down the highway.

It was just a vision, but what a vision it was. A giant, fat Venus, with arms like snakes, writhing in ecstasy as she played with a rubber dong. I know, it didn’t make any sense to my either, but there it was. I guess all things serve the will of the Goddess, especially on the outskirts of Middle Earth.

So there was this television actor in one of our hotel rooms, and he was the star of this particularly famous science fiction show that aired about fifteen years ago. And he was in a real pissed-off mood.

I remember he was lying in bed, and I had a box he carried along with him. In the box were a number of discs of his television program, and there was also an odd device that I took to be a prop. Except, when I laid it on the bed, he informed me that it was, in reality, a phone. I remember feeling really embarrassed, and later he sat up in bed and began to strum the mandolin for my benefit.

So anyway his television character appears and they start rapping about how they lost the hearing in one ear, and the actor says it happened at some fictional battle that occurred only within the confines of the box and I am confused but I follow them anyway.

Next, I was trimming lawn for miles…

The Dance

Life is a shuffle; life is a little dance.

Some of us take big steps, sweep around the floor, and make fools of ourselves. Or, distinguish ourselves, depending upon your point of view. Some of us are content to merely tip-toe around, distracting ourselves with the fact that we are moving at all, making time to the music that only we can hear.

Some of us are wallflowers, and we sit in the corner and stare at the other dancers, content to live vicariously through the movements of others. I think that most folks fall into this latter category, and that is not wrong. Nothing wrong about it. It’s just the way things are.

But there is a silent music to life, a sort of frequency that only we can hear, and which every one of us tunes in just a little bit different than the last person. To some the tune speaks rage, to others loss, to still others triumphant joy and pure harmony, but whatever your music says to you, you dance to the rhythm of your heart, and you do the best you can.

But, one day the music stops, the credits roll, and we are left with only the memories of times gone by and dances begun but never finished. We try to waltz around the room on crippled legs, moving to a tune grown fainter and fainter, as the rest of the dancers shuffle out of the ballroom to take up their places outside, in infinity, where the music is always the same.

We can whistle past the bone yard but can we dance past it, kicking our legs into the air to spite the dirty fingers of death as he clutches our minutes to his loveless bosom? I’m not sure that I can. My dance has petered out until all I am doing is shuffling in the shadows, counting down the minutes until the ballroom closes and the partiers are asked to split. I am trying to find my footsteps again, but it is not easy. Some say the sky’s the limit when it comes to dancing, that you’re only as young as you feel and once you get that body moving again, well, it’s just like riding a bicycle: once you know how, you never forget. I’m not sure all those people aren’t born maniacs or liars.

Because age weighs on you. Time weighs on you. You watch as, one by one, lines start to split your face apart like a road map, and the fat moves in on your body, and you are no longer young and lean and ready to take action, to take charge of that dance floor. You are old and withered and your legs barely work, and that man in the corner with the dance diagram may laugh at you and call you a few polite names but you can’t help it…you’ve forgotten where to plant the footsteps,a nd your partner ran out on you long ago.

But, no matter the music, no matter the weight in your legs or the pain in your back, you can still manage to do a little dance. To make a little time to the music. To cut a rug and show the whippersnappers how it is done. I know this to be true. Because I dance to the rhythm of a life with no music, no movement, no sound or fury. Yet I dance.

When I drink my coffee, I dance.

When I eat breakfast at six o’ clock in the morning, feeling the stuff nourish me and send me back from the brink of despair, I dance.

I am dancing while I am writing these words. It is hard to keep my fingers attached to the keyboard.

When I read a good book, it is like dancing.

When I write down a particularly vivid dream, it is also dancing.

I spin constantly in the still moments of my life. I am like a hundred dancers, all rocking to the internal beat, and maybe no one else can hear the music, and maybe everyone else will think that I am quite mad, but I continue to dance.

Without romance, I dance.

Without a future, I dance.

Even in the grip of my most intimate despair, I am still dancing, still moving to that old internal rhythm, still looking forward to that day when I will be joined, like a vision or a waking dream, by a hundred other dancers all ready to join in my particular madness.

So dance the mysterious dance of life. Because you already are, whether you realize it or not.

Iris Dement – “Our Town”