JUNE
11, 1977 ~ 10:30 P.M.
It doesn't matter
as much now to me what time of the day it is when I write;
I've changed my eating and sleeping hours anyway, and so 10:30
is much later now than it used to be; thus I am very sleepy
and should be.
Nine thirty was feeling terribly sad
and hoping for sympathy --I had so much sympathy and understanding
to give in return. Alas, there was no one suitable --I don't
want to worry and bother people, and I don't want them to
worry unnecessarily over me. Noises in the house were becoming
unbearable, and I wanted to go to Temple with Daddy.
Daddy, Daddy, I'm so small and young
again --nice to awaken from the nightmare of the future; I
hope it somehow doesn't come true. Daddy and I got into the
car and drove off, and I stared quietly out the window. Four
years old (nearly five) ; I am calm and patient for my age.
Is that really my daddy? He looks too big and too old. I want
my mommy. I never can forget her. She always looks the same.
"Did you see the fox, Larry?"
The car turned to the left ditch whither
the fox had gone.
The big bright yellow sign in the middle
of the road had the letters
"D ET O U R" on it and an arrow pointing to the
left (I have my watch on). There were lots of strange flashing
yellow lights lighting up the dark ditches in a hypnotic order
--scattered, unordered order.
We drove through the winding streets
of Oenaville or some other little town I'd been to that had
houses lined on both sides of the road and a few scary bridges
that crossed over deep rivers of black waters. We almost met
a car on a one-lane bridge. Then suddenly I heard a noise
begin. It was a mixture of a Nazi siren, the ice cream truck,
and the street cleaners from CAMINO REAL*. The street cleaners
were after me. They wanted me because I was small and helpless.
The noise of them grew steadily louder until I must have screamed
and fainted. I didn't lose all consciousness --my eyes didn't
close. Meanwhile the noise continued to grow louder, but I
was able to hear only brief, fairly regular, spasmodic snatches
of it as my hearing went off and on. I knew I was blacking
out --my fear surfaced, and I started crying. Even after the
noise began to grow fainter I remained terrified. The car
stopped or slowed down, and the changes in speed and the curves
added to my dizziness, as I was vainly trying to regain full
consciousness. For a while I was wedged in between two states,
but I tended to keep falling down to the lower, darker one.
The road was shiny and black and so unsmooth. I gasped for
breath and said some words which I didn't hear, but which
I saw in a balloon coming from my mouth. I'm not sure the
words were right --I couldn't read them.
The sky was black and blue; my hair
was brown with black lines in it, and my whole body was surrounded
by a black line which formed my outlines, and which cut through
my ties to other objects. I was on a page in a comic book
-- one which I was writing. I knew that all the comic books
I'd seen had happy endings, but I was writing this one, and
not everything I write has a happy ending. I sensed tragedy:
everyone on my page was sad.
Daddy said roll down the window to
get fresh air, and I did, but I was weak and becoming weaker
and had almost given up hope. I would die, I decided, if I
lost consciousness --if I go to sleep I won't wake up, and
the rest of my life will be dreams --but to fight made me
weaker and less conscious.
The cool night air and the bright stars
in the black sky revived me and breathed new air into my lungs.
But something died.
It was no longer 1962, but 1977. We
would go back. I would not forget completely my glimpse into
the future, but I was too young to remember everything. Temple
and Troy had changed --buildings sprang up to be torn down
and built again. We watched several years pass in several
minutes. What? Are we stopping in 1977? Strange; odd year
to pick. We should have skipped it. Aren't we going back now?
How else will we live the lost years between 1962 and 1977
that we ran through in those few minutes? Besides, I wanted
to change some things along the way.
Suddenly we're nowhere. We're not going
anywhere, and we're not staying still. Somewhere an artificial
light shines through a pattern of misarranged holes. The bell
tolls. Slowly, and I alone hear it. Someone else may see it.
The bell is telling me the time, but I can't remember whether
I last went forward or backward, and so I cannot know what
it means.
I realize now I am in the middle room.
I was either here before or knew that I would be here. I see
two worlds (or more) on opposite sides of me. I am in the
most unstable place, but I am in a place even if I don't stay
still. I rather drift. I am not going to go back to retrace
my path --that would be as impossible as trying to trace with
my pen over everything I've ever written. Some of the things
don't even exist anymore. I may cross over paths I've travelled
before, I may travel closely along previous paths, but I am
travelling very quickly and am covering great distances, and
so it seems likely that I should cross myself.
It is after midnight now, and so it
is actually tomorrow. Tomorrow is existing in the present
now because today is yesterday. It will not be today until
I have gone to sleep and have woken.
______________________
*
CAMINO REAL - a play by Tennessee Williams, in which the streetcleaners
come in the middle of the night, making strange hypnotic sounds
as they sweep anything dead or decaying from the streets.
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