Chapter VII ☯ Lightspeed
Falls City, NE, Aug. 6, 1966, 06:00 CST
And then I’m rising through the bright white air.
I always hated church. Saw no point in organized religion. Didn’t mind spirituality. Didn’t believe that it had any connection with organized religion, though. It was money, power, pomposity, control. That’s it. But this is no time for that stuff, some serious shit is going down.
I’m losing my peripheral vision. I’m told later that at this point, most people lose consciousness, for a very good reason. Darkness is flirting with the edges of my sight. The noise is lessening, the rising has stopped. I’m just feeling speed. Going fast. Really fast. Motion in my head. It’s fast. It’s amazing. And it hurts like hell, because, for some unknown reason, I’m still frickin’ awake.
I feel the speed burn away. I start to float and drop. I float like a balloon. The shrieking in my ears has gone away. I’m not sure when any of this happens. I have no concept of time during the Transition. I don’t have the sensation of time passing.
The pain is easing up, then I drop like a balloon. I can look down. The whiteness surrounding me is fading away and there are shadowy mountains on a horizon and above are streaks of colored light in every imaginable hue streaming away from me as I fall and it’s alll very delightful and I’m no longer hurting, but I’m very, very tired. My god, the exhaustion hits me with an impact almost worse that the crash.
It’s nighttime here. I float high above a large lake and there are gondolas clustered around a dock on the shore with lanterns on poles at their sterns. One is being poled out towards me and I realize that I am falling towards the lake and that I have feet because I can see toes. Toes? What happened to my shoes? I count them. I still have ten. I can still count. And I can still realize when I’m naked, which I am right now. Again, I’m supposed to be asleep. Some people will not believe me later when I describe the Transition.
I float down and slice into the water feet first. It isn’t scary, it feels absolutely great. It’s soothing and tranquil and I see fishes staring back at me and a light dancing on the surface of the water above me. I touch bottom and can feel the squishiness of the mud on the bottom. I realize that my skin feels like it’s on fire but not burning or hurting and a million bubbles are streaming upwards from my body, popping on the surface and releasing my steam into the night sky to mingle with all those stars.
I stand in the mud for awhile and just sway a bit with a current and cool off, look around me. Fish swim around. I think that it is a little weird that I can see them and see the surface, but the lake seems to gather the starlight and surround me with it. I begin to feel cool and the bubbles stop rising. I think maybe I should breathe now, but don’t really feel the need. I try moving my arms and my feet come out of the mud and I start floating up toward the night air.
I bob to the surface of the lake and float on my back. I’m staring up at the stars and have never seen them so clear, so brilliant. They embrace me, welcome me. So I just float there. It’s pleasant, I gather my thoughts about me, I can’t seem to move much, it’s all okay. So, that was a kick in the pants, I think, and maybe I should just lie here in the lake.
I remember the crash. It’s like it just happened and also like it happened about a hundred years before. I’m not sure which. I’m thinking that maybe somehow I survived it and fell into a lake in Nebraska and I’m just floating here. It’s not heaven or hell, it’s just Nebraska. I laugh, but make no sound. My mouth won’t move. I don’t seem to be blinking. I’m conscious that I’m just beginning to breathe.
Then I hear the splashes of a boat being poled towards me. A guy is singing. I roll my eyes to the left and I see coming towards me a block gondola, just like from Venice, only fancier. The blackness. Okay, well, that’s a little strange. Gondolas on a lake in Nebraska? Probably not. But I’m pretty copacetic. Hey, I survived that plane crash, it’s all good, right? Maybe I’m hallucinating, I’ll wake up in some hospital, I’ll tell the grandkids about it. The gondolier comes closer.
He’s dressed in a black-and-white-striped shirt and dark pants. He doesn’t have a cap. He’s singing. It’s Italian, but I understand it. I don’t know why. I’ve never understood it before. He’s singing something from Carmen. He poles the gondola up next to me and pulls the pole aboard. He reaches down, stares in my face, mutters something about me being awake how did that happen and then tells me not to worry, everything’s okay from here on out. He pulls me aboard, arranges me on a soft couch, covers me with some towels, then a heavy blanket and takes out the pole to swing us around back toward shore.
I gaze up at him. He’s handsome, Italian, mid-20s, dark hair. I can’t see the color of his eyes in the night, but his teeth are white and he grins. I smell olives and wine on his breath and many other things on his clothes that I can’t identify. He tells me his name is Giacomo and to relax and enjoy the ride.
The couch is angled slightly upwards so I can see where we’re going. We head toward those lanterns on gondolas swaying on the waves at a dock. There are people near them and a bonfire on shore. Giacomo takes his time, goes back to singing. I look at the stars above, the mountains, the lake, the little party on the beach. It’s beautiful. The scene is lightening as a full moon rises behind us. I sense it before I’m ever in a position to see it.
The lake is ringed with mountains purpled in the twilight, capped with white snow which actually sparkles in the moonlight. It’s lovely, but it’s right about here, just before we hit the dock, that I start getting pissy. The scene, the whole scene is too clichéd for me. I’m the cynical old journalist. There’s too much cuteness, too much beauty, it’s all too perfect. And there are no mountains in Nebraska.
I’m annoyed. It’s great, it’s peaceful, I’m okay, but damnit, something’s just not right.
Giacomo pulls us expertly up to the dock. Two men are there, one dressed like Giacomo, the other in black with a top hat and cape. He’s smoking a pipe. Giacomo calls out that he’s pulled in an ‘awake one.’ The guy in black opens his eyes wide in surprise and he leans over the gondola to get a look at me. He’s holding a lantern and he shines it down on me. It’s a little bright and I want to tell him what to do with it, but apparently speech is not going to happen tonight. I can’t move anything, even my mouth. I can barely even blink.
The guy in black draws in a sharp breath against his teeth and, almost to himself, says, ‘So he is! Now that’s a first, that is!’
He’s talking in English. I understand him too. But it’s not Nebraska English. Or even American English. London, probably.
The other guy on the dock, dressed like Giacomo who looks like he’s an older brother, is talking in Italian. I still understand it, but it just washes over me. I don’t remember what is said. He ties up the gondola, then jumps in. He and Giacomo grab me and lift me onto the dock. They get up on the dock themselves, then lift me again onto a long wheelbarrow-type contraption. It’s wooden and has large wheels and two handles at one end. They fix the blanket back on me and start talking about how Gennaro and Sophia have come down to the beach and that the food is almost ready.
Giacomo sees me looking at them and nudges the other guy.
‘He’s still awake! Hey, this is Giancarlo, my brother. You’re okay now, you’ll be fine. This other guy is Louis, he’s your ride into town,’ he says.
I’d reply, but speech still isn’t happening. Too bad; I have lots of questions.
Louis walks ahead of us and Giancarlo takes the handles of the wheelbarrow behind my head. He pushes me down the dock and onto the beach. There’s a party going full blast to my right. I can’t turn my head and the wheelbarrow isn’t angled so I can see, but out of the corner of my eye I can see a bonfire, dancing, a table full of food and drink. I can smell cooking and hear some music and laughter. I want to tell Giancarlo he can just leave me here, but speech is still not happening and Louis is walking away from us in a hurry, like he’s got a train to catch.
We go a short way up a jetty to a road that comes down to the dockside out of the dark woods, which are full of tall pine trees. There’s a scent on the air full of pine and fish and woodsmoke and something in the blanket they’ve thrown over me and something else like lavender in the bed underneath me. On the road is a pretty damn big horse standing patiently between the traces of a black open wagon chewing on something. Louis reaches his side and pats him.
‘This is William. He will take us to our destination,’ Louis says.
Giancarlo pushes the wheelbarrow up next to the wagon. There is a high seat on the front end of it, beautifully upholstered and padded, with glowing lanterns on the sides. In the back is a bed which looks pretty cooshy and another lantern on the rear. The wheels are wooden and the whole thing is lacquered black, polished to a high shine.
Giancarlo takes my shoulders, Giacomo takes my feet and they lift me up onto the bed on the wagon. They cover me with several layers of blankets, put a pillow under my head.
‘Just rest and take it easy. Enjoy the ride. Sleep. Everything’s okay. Have a nice trip,’ Giacomo says.
They jump down. Louis shakes hands with the brothers, they wave at me and walk off toward the party. Louis hops aboard the wagon seat, picks up the reigns and clucks softly at William, who stirs into life and pulls us in a circle to head up the road into the woods. Louis looks over his shoulder.
‘It’s a bit of a long ride, I’m afraid, lad, so you just lie there and get some sleep. Do you good,’ he says.
He turns his attention back to the road. The forest rises up on either side of us and the lanterns on the wagon send bouncing shadows playing among the tall trees, which swallow us up.
I’m not sleepy. I wonder why? ★
• 1999 Words written by Steve @ 19:06 | 24-Jun-08 in Transition •
Critique It
Start | Next | Archive | Syndicate | View | Link | Ask | Search | Contact
You are here: AirBeagle » AirBeagle.Info » next