The half-forgotten
Other half of my short life
In short story form

 
In the Heart of Mexico
6-28-2002

Nighttime on the rooftop of some city. There's a line of people wrapping around a building on the roof. I'm standing at the end with two male companions. We're going to pull a job together.

Somehow we end up falling through a hole, landing in a basement that hasn't been disturbed for a long time. Some old desks and chairs, and strange dirt mounds to step over. After a while, I notice one wall is made of glass, and we can see outside. It's like a zoo exhibit; baby panda bears are playing outside. I bang on the glass, and a little panda comes, crashing into the glass and breaking through. Now we have an escape route, except the mother panda will come looking for its child. I can hear my sister's voice in my head, "Just jump on a chair when she comes in." I look around, but the chairs are gone, and her advice made no sense anyway. The mother panda comes in, but doesn't molest us, and soon they're gone.

I end up back on that roof, and one of my partners says that BR is going to team up with us next time. I'm like, "Uh oh...I've worked with him before. A lot, back in high school, college even. We don't get along anymore." Suddenly my other partner is KBrns, and he concurs. Nonetheless, BR comes along, and he's not so bad. I don't remember what we accomplished together, though.

Something about some girl supposed to be giving me a ride somewhere, but instead takes me to her place. I don't go inside, but instead just get out of her car and start walking back to wherever. It's in a dark, wooded area, but the roads are paved. I get the feeling not many people live there.

I know I return to that place later in the dream, but I don't remember when.

I find myself at the corner of a large fence. There's a military-like commander there, and a younger, stocky guy. There's a pole like a telephone pole there at the corner, too, and the younger guy is supposed to knock it over, as a test. He goes, "Whoouh" and kicks it, but it doesn't budge.

I'm someplace else again, like a hallway outside a classroom or something, meeting other people. There's a Korean guy, an old man in a jumpsuit, two preppy girls, another girl, a Black girl, and one or two other guys. We've all just apparently passed some aptitude test.

Someone takes us to that fence, and we watch that guy kick the pole down, breaking a hole in the fence. We all applaud him, and one guy gives him a clap on the shoulder. It occurs to me to personally congratulate him, but I refrain, thinking it might be overkill. I mumble "Whoouh" to myself, as if it's a sort of key-ap, and one of the guys in our group hears me. He goes, "Cmon everybody, let's hear it. 'Whooouh!'" So we all give it a go, like it's our cheer.

I knew this was an elite organization, but I was unsure how I became a part of it. I thought it a strange coincidence that I'd just passed that other aptitude test.

One by one we enter a room, which is like a bar, because there's, well, a bar there, except it's two stories, very small, and the stools are behind the bar. I find a spot in a corner. The normal girl is next to me, and one of the guys is, too. She's talking about the Black girl, who happens to be going up top to find a seat. She says how the Black girl used to be stupid and not talk right (not as in talk like a Black person, but just get things WRONG), but she was determined, and improved enough to make it here.

I decide I'd rather be someplace else, so I leave the room, ending up at the front of the most kickass bus I've even seen. The two commanders are up there, prepping our pilot (bus driver) on our mission. They don't mind my presence. I guess I'm free to do what I want, since I'm now a member of the organization. I hang out by the pilot, to keep him company, but then I forget what I was going to talk about. He's like, "What?". I tell him, "I had a question, but nevermind. Sorry." I go to the back of the bus and look out the left-side window. The bar-like room is below this floor on the bus, down the steps at the back. The others remain down there.

It's still nighttime, and as I look out the window at the dreary city, I muse about how I'll tell people that I went on a secret mission tonight. I think about how I would've never gotten this job if I'd told my mom about it, and sure am glad I didn't.

I look out the back window, which is steamed up, but someone has already smeared a smaller window through the steam. I see we're on a winding, hilly, stone bridge, crossing over the sea. It's as if the bridge were hilly to conform to the rolling waves of the ocean. Then I notice other bridges like it surrounding us, all over the place. Many are broken, and they're like man-made islands. I figure it means we're going into Mexico.

There are other cars on this road, and the ones near us. A woman stands up in an old convertible and wildly fires her machinegun, bullets going in every direction. I figure we're okay, since the bus is bulletproof, but I see a little hole in the seat in front of me. The old man is looking out the window with me. I go, "Isn't this bus supposed to be bulletproof?" He agrees, and I wonder what the heck kinda bullets those must be. She fires again, wildly hitting us. I sort of duck under the seat as some come through the window, though microscopically. Then I see a white glow, and I know it means bad news. I start wriggling down the compartment to get downstairs. The old man looks at me as if to say, "That's a good idea; too bad I'm not going to do it." The moment I'm down there, there's a huge explosion up there, and his body ends up at the bottom of the stairs. I know he's dead, but then I flash forward...

And I'm on a city sidewalk, and he's standing in front of me on the street, badly injured, but somehow recuperated. I narrate the scene. "I told him I could call [the ambulance], but he said he was okay. I watched him leave, knowing he wouldn't last long. I think he wanted to die alone, but it didn't have to be that way." I watch him turn a corner, knowing it's the last I'll see of him.

The two preppy girls pass by me, talking as usual. The Korean guy comes running from across the street, yelling something. I thought it was the old man's name, but when he arrives, he says, "I said '1st zipper'", as if to cover it up. He picks a case up off the ground. It seems our party has split into two factions now.

I get a vision of a bubble floating in darkness. The narrator in my mind says something to the effect of, "They started off on the old Ohio roads...". On the lower-left quadrant of the image, glowing gold/blue tentacles and stuff manifest at the edges of the bubble. The bubble starts to bulge out toward them, pushing them back, but not mingling. "But then the came...". Suddenly the bubble opened up, and all the slimey things end up closed up inside of it, as it to take it over. Then they all concentrate in a shooting star-like pattern toward the lower-left quadrant again, as if they're trying to poke out of it, and the narrator says, "...and they knew they were in the heart of Mexico."


posted by Phlegm at 11/26/2003