Dear diary,
At some point, while the cops are chasing me down the Lost Highway as fast as my 1995 Dodge Neon can go (for I put the pedal to the metal), my car transforms into a Harley-Davidson motorbike, and the extra material that formerly comprised the automobile but now is no longer needed (because two-wheeled cycles are slenderer than four-wheeled sedans) takes the form of my portly comrade Executive Stevens, who preceded me in the office of Ice-Cream Emperor and is now occupying the back seat, behind me, holding onto my waist for dear life. Then I hit a large stumbling block, which had been placed in the middle of the road by Fate long ago, and this sends Stevens and I tumbling thru outer space head-over-heels:
The motorbike plunks into a swamp and explodes, sending frogs flying in every direction, and they land in people’s hairdos; while Stevens himself liquifies into quicksilver and probably becomes all things to all people, or else he works his way into the yellow blood that pumps thru the cardiovascular system of a monster who is currently attacking corporate spacecrafts somewhere over the rainbow, or something like that.
As for myself, the motorcycle accident causes me to somersault thru the warm summer air until I land on my feet like a bipedal cat in the mud of the jungle. Oh how I love the sound that wet soil makes when one clops around within it. The sucking and popping of one’s hooves in the thick wet earth. But it takes a lot of strength to stride straight thru this heart of darkness with curtains of vines caressing one’s forehead: One must have been blessed with sturdy calf muscles — and never forget to keep yourself hydrated.
There are enormous palm leaves and ferns that I must keep drawing aside with my arms, as I struggle to reach someplace that seems more interesting. After successfully navigating past an ocean of quicksand that I meet when I reach a clearing, I look back to see if the police are still in hot pursuit, and you can imagine how relieved I am to behold that they are all neck-deep in the sucking ground, flailing their arms and crying “Help, help.” — I shake my head and shout a quip as I wave bye-bye: “You should have just let me drive fast in my Dodge Neon; then none of this would have happened!” (They all now shake their fists at me and go under.)
I grab a vine nearby and tug it to see how strong it is. It falls down from wherever it was attached. So I toss it into a boiling cauldron and eat it, after it’s cooked. It proves a good meal, high in fiber and containing vitamins, with a taste reminiscent of saltwater seaweed. “Mmm,” I say. This sound attracts two mountain lions, and they dive at me with their saber fangs exposed. I reach forward and tug at another vine, and this one doesn’t break; so I swing forth and leap from vine to vine until my danger-meter returns to the “moderately high” level.
(Just to tidy up the loose ends of the event above: Once I sprang out of the way, the two mountain lions who had leapt in my direction with an attempt to bite me collided head-on with each other so that both of their open mouths ended in a lip-lock. Then a giant pythoness came and swallowed these predators whole, without even chewing them. This pythoness subsequently found a job in Hollywood as a prop. And she starred as herself in the movie version of these memoirs of mine. So that snake that you see in that scene of parenthetical explanation during my jungle adventures is actually the same one that ate my attackers, after I fled.)
Now I look down and notice that the moist mud is discoloring my ankles. This is bad, but it’s nowhere near as bad as having quicksand up to your neck and eventually over the top of your head, like all those cops recently did. (I still wonder why they insist on chasing after me instead of just being my friend. We could accomplish so much more if we just work together.) So I trudge forward for miles and miles, until I grow sleepy. Then I stop by the wayside and use a boulder for a bed. I fall asleep and dream of the Angel Christ:
“Bryan, Bryan,” the Angel Christ sez.
“Here am I,” I say.
The Angel Christ’s body is aglow, like a damsel made of lightning: “I will help you escape from this deadly ordeal; so do not lose heart.”
Then I wake entirely refreshed, and I go back to laboring my way thru the ankle-deep mud, batting the ferns and palms away with my arms. “I wish I had brought my glittering sword, so that I could hack thru this greenery easier,” I remark aloud to myself, as I keep wincing and making annoyed expressions whenever the plants of the jungle brush against my face.
Now I come to a small pond. This one is different from all the other sources of water that I’ve passed, because it’s not inundated by green algae — it is pure and crystal-clear. I fall to my knees and cup my hands and take a drink. The liquid is cool and refreshing. Then I notice that a strange, feathered lizard has scurried forward and stopped by my side. I reach down and pick him up: his belly is between my fingers. I hold him at eye level, to get a better look at him. His little tongue keeps testing the air. “I shall name you Yeshua,” I declare. Then I pop him into my mouth, swallow him whole, and continue on my way. (I learned this technique of efficient eating from watching serpents in the jungle — they never waste time chewing: they simply shove the being, while it is still alive, into their stomach. And then it just melts there. The flesh and blood of that creature then gets assimilated into one’s own physicality; and their bones and feathers are later coughed up in a neat little ball, usually during a commercial break so that the audience needn’t see this. Also, whatever divine attributes one’s meal once possessed now become the property of one’s own imagination.)
So now I’m smarter, because the lizard that I ate was wise. Thus, instead of traveling thru the jungle in circles, I change my plan and now proceed in a straight line: North-Northwest. Then I come to the edge of this Chaos that I’ve been struggling to escape for so many eons, and I step into the oasis of Order that surrounds it. (Am I right about this? Does the continent of Order surround the expanse of Chaos, or is it rather that the Chaos holds within it one small island known as Order which is always liable to drown?) The place is beautiful: it is a parking lot filled with vehicles and a few grazing deer. And in the distance is a Mega Mall.
No comments:
Post a Comment