Dream Continuation
October 9, 1996
Providence

Someone starts a dream, the next person keeps going. Met in Milhaus.

psychedelic indulgence

you are a lifeguard watching a single young bather when a phonecall pulls you away from the water -- you find yourself talking to an angel who says "whatever happens, it’s ok...." And you hang up real fast and find the bather is gone -- panicked, you blow your whistle and wave your arms and are answered with silence. You sit on a dock and feel it quake violently and realize that the child has gotten stuck beneath it -- suddenly you can’t swim -- you can’t lift the dock -- you desperately reach with your hands and feet and shout "grab on..." but you find that you can’t do anything to help yourself. The child is so good but you can’t have him. You write on a blank chalkboard, holding it up next to the setting sun. The child he will die and is talking to you. You lift the whistle which is like a tuba now, but a whistle still, and it is now now now. The echo shakes your head. You see a train go past the dunes. In all the flashing cars a woman seems to stay the same. It’s like those films Andy Warhol made that never change, like the Empire State Building or a man sleeping. But Andy Warhol’s dead. And taht baby -- the child, he is there but his arms are not powerful enough, and the dock’s tremor is slowly settling to a gentle lull. Suddenly you realize you have a large ladle attached to each anklebone, and slipping your feet into the cool water, you instinctually know the fluid, scooping motion -- playful, almost -- needed to bring the child out from under the dock.

There. He is coming out reluctantly, whining that he wants to go back and "play Maalox." You snake an arm out to grab the ladle before it sucks up too much soup and realize that the baby has turned into Felisha Rashad. She starts lecturing you on dental hygene in between bursts of "Into the Woods" in E flat. As she opens her mouth whistles keep falling out so you grab a red rubber float and ride it like a surfboard & gather them up before they float out to sea. Suddenly the whistles are all pages of your thesis and Felisha Rashad is holding them up against the light like x-rays. examining you.