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

 
This Is Not a Pretzel
3-20-1995

Started out I was in a nice room, kinda lavished with gold-like furniture, dark, and kinda of regal, I guess. There were magazines and pictures and papers and stuff orderly strewn about. I remember one magazine had your picture on it, and a lot of the other material pertained to you as well. I remember thinking I would wait there until either your parents or you showed up. I ended up wanting to take a shower, so I stripped down (might've still had underwear on) and walked into a bathroom (no, not your house or anything, either. More like a warped version of mine). I had just turned on the shower when your mom (I think) walked in as if she weren't done getting ready for the day. She gave me a very very heavy towel. I wrapped it around me and I could barely move. I walked out of there and onto a street, still weighted down by this thing. I don't rememeber what I had to do, but I walked down the street a very long ways, past buildings and stuff, until I realized I had gone too far. I walked back and saw that where I wanted to go (just a building) had been right behind the bathroom all along. I kept walking. Somewhere along the way I lost my towel, and I was now in my underwear, but I didn't care. There were no people. I saw my parents and said I'd be right with them.

The scene sorta changed to a jungle, and I ran through it and saw this kid that I know from Playland and AFE. He was playing Space Invaders. There was another video game by him. I took a look. I was reminded of a cartoon called Akira. It was a cartoon-type video game with various allusions to Japanimation films. I said something to the effect that Space Ace rocks. We chatted a bit, then my dad caught up with me. As I was running back (without my dad, hmm), I thought to myself, "Hey, that's Pol!" (a person, but it makes no sense) I ended up turning back, as there was an explosion or something. I immediately knew where to go, and under a bush, all smoky, was a kid. I intuitively knew his name (though I don't remember it now). There was some ordeal with him which I don't remember. Then I was more on a beach of this jungle. A giant snake or something crashed through a building and went right past me. I had a grenade or something in my hand. I threw it, but it fell really short and landed in the brush as the snake headed down a hill to the beach. I realized it was a big mistake as tons of people, running after it, passed by where my bomb had landed. Luckily just some purple smoke came out.

Then I didn't feel well and woke up. I fell back asleep...I was at home, in my old house as usual. I was in the shower. After clearing out all the gunk from the drain that my sister always leaves behind, I stepped in. I was feeling pretty lazy (or kinky. Hehe.) and squirted the rest of the shampoo on the floor of the bathtub. I had planned on just lying down and rolling around in it or something. I turned on the water and it came out of the showerhead in a very annoying spread-out fashion. I adjusted it and was almost blown back by the intensity of the water. I was kinda pissed as all the soap on the floor washed away. I knelt down and started fiddling with the drain plug thing, making sure it was set to drain and not clog up. Next thing I knew, I was in my garage (at my old house). There were no cars in there. Looking around the neighborhood, I noticed all the little children playing about, even though it was very early morning and still dark out. I had never seen any of these kids before, and I realized that the whole place had forever changed. I grabbed a basketball off a shelf and dribbled it as I went out the garage, around back, and across some yards. The yards were very big and the houses far away. I tried to dribble between my legs, but I had on a heavy jacket that impeded my movement. Some kids ran up to me just as I was about to descend a small slope. One of them had a ball. Two boys and a girl. The girl said, "Tell him to gimme my ball back!" She pointed at one of the boys. The other boy said, "Tell him not to be such a ball hog!" They said more along the same lines. The one kid with the ball said nothing, I think. I just turned and walked away, as I had realized that my ball had gone flat, and said, "Just let him have the ball." I saw a corner coming up ahead, where I just knew a school bus would stop. I went there and placed both my jacket and the flat ball on one of those yellow saw-horse-like construction barriers that just happened to be on the sidewalk. There were a few little kids standing around. I walked away.

Then I think I was watching TV somewhere. All I saw was the screen. It was The Simpsons, and Homer had just won some big money, I think, and lost it. At this time I went back to the bus stop and retrieved my things. Then I somehow sat in on two guys in a living room, sitting on acough, worrying about money. Then one remembered that he had a bundlestashed away, all of his life, like 1 million or something. He fell andbroke a lamp. A bunch of money went everywhere. Some was stuck in his glasses, and he said, "I see an eight!" (dollar bill?!?) I (somehow) pointed out that the rest of the money was gone. He sat back and pouted that he should've spent it while he had the chance, that he was foolish for saving it, etc. There was also an ordeal with a video tape or something vanishing, but there was nowhere it could've gone, as the space underneath all the doors was too small for anything to get under. *shrug*
Sometime in all this came up the matter that I was an incarnation of someone else, like Cleopatra or someone...immortal or something. I insisted that *I* wasn't Cleopatra and *I* wasn't immortal.

I found myself walking behind a weak, skeletal figure (maybe myself) in a church or auditorium or something. I left. I ate (or fed her) some soup and she grew strong, so I took her in my arms and walked up to a dorm room somewhere. As I walked, she turned into a big snake, which eventually shrunk down to a very small one, and then into a twig, which I held in my hand. Some guy grinned at me as I passed through a doorway. I got into a room where there was someone I supposedly knew. I thought how this person was one of the people who helped the leper community, and that they'd surely have some good soup to feed her. (the stick? Heh.) I left the room with the twig in my hand, with the thought of eating good beef noodle.

I ended up in my friend Eileen's room (she's a friend in RL, but she doesn't live on the floor above, or even in my dorm). We hugged, something we've never done, and she grabbed me by the butt (tickled. heh) and practically swung me over her head. I made some comment about this, of course. I think she kinda put me down. There was some girl sitting at a desk in her room, crying or just being depressed. Eileen said, "I want to have mad love with you" or something. I said, "Is that right?" or something to that effect and we laid down on her bed. I laid down on top of her (we still had our clothes on, and the lights were on), smiled, and kissed her on the cheek. She raised her chin, I slightly moved her hair back, and I kissed her on the neck a few times. Then I stopped and said, "I came here to show you something." I held up the twig. "This is not a pretzel. It's the Asp of Cleopatra (or something like that)" She didn't believe me. Then I heard something and got up, went out the door, beckoning for her to come see. I knew the soup had come into effect. I went up a floor and looked out the window. There was a big yellow thing floating out there. It spoke, but its words were actual text, and I couldn't read it all from where I was cuz it went behind other obstacles. I made this clear, then it said, "I must now go and never return." I smiled. It mimicked me somehow, and buzzed off.

One piece that I can't place in there was walking down the street, below this dorm building, and thinking about (or actually buying) a piece of Dentene.

posted by Phlegm at 11/23/2003