Static

We were living in back to back hotels. My brother, sister, and I.

And in our rooms, at a certain time, and a certain channel, an old tv would switch on, and we would all leave the ground.

There was a disturbance at the core of this earth we were living on.

I would go in my closet and disturb my books to try to stop it.

And at that time, I knew everything would change and not obey laws.

When the tv turned on, everything was black and white.

And that disturbance became clear.

“It’s time. Here we go.”

I said to my brother and I began to become convinced that this would happen at least once every year.

It was 1969, I remember, and we left the control and gravity of earth.

My brother and I would begin to float as the media would broadcast this phenomenon on tv.

We were still in black and white, while the news would play out every move as we made it. 

“Here we go”.

“Don’t be scared, this is just what happens every year” I said to my brother as we floated toward the ceiling.

“The world loses control and we have to step on walls and ceilings to ride it out”

“And we have to wait for the burglars to do their thing”

“It will happen every night. For a while. But it will seem like a year. Someone will try to break in. We will run to latch the doors and seal them before the loss of gravity begins, and the broadcast on tv makes everything black and white”

“Where the core of the earth has a massive shift and suddenly, just in these hotel rooms and the ones revolving with us. We feel it and it takes us with it.”

Sometimes it feels like, this is love. This is what love feels like.

Then I think of my sister that is sleeping in a red dress from the 50’s in her hotel bed.

I try to wake her, but I think she knows when the hotel shakes her and the black and white tv comes on and turns everything back to 1969.

This moon landing is rough but we all feel it. And we are all floating and losing control.

On the other side of the world, businesses are opening back up.

Suddenly, I’m at my favorite comedy club again and they are gearing up to bring everyone back.

I see my dreamscapes pass me as they are being used as stages in this scenario and I’m okay with it.

For a moment, I'm floating in the ocean and there is a large transluscent banner with a sunset painted on it. It matches up with the real sun from behind it. I turn my head sideways and try to touch it and it falls suddenly into the ocean. 

I'm transported to the street outside the comedy club in the blink of an eye.

There is a time when I feel the black and white memory of chaos in my head, and I’m in my red dress, and I think how could I feel this happy without all this dread?

I sit there for a moment, on the curb and feel thankful.

Suddenly, I am on a train to a different destination, the new and improved comedy club that I used to perform at. I am about to join the team.

I’m brought onboard with helping out as stadiums are prepared and about to be filled with people as they decide to go out.

I walk through a gymnasium as my first task is to start taking down plastic casings from metal armrests and as I do I turn around and the director runs out of the room. I don’t know what to do so I try to leave, but the person at the door stops me to take my temperature.

I’m told to go home, so I go to my childhood home and find my friend bleeding in the front seat of his car. I pull up next to him and ask if he needs help.

He says no at first and then obliges, so I call 911 and get in the front seat to help him.

He starts talking about how the ambulance won’t arrive.

Some construction crews show up with sirens and look like ambulances, but then they just pick up people passed out in their car with the jaws of life. The crane picks up a whole row of them in this cul de sac. Then the construction vehicle turns into a hearse and the trunk pops open and I see an old woman in a casket.
 

There was a man next to her looking excitedly for the camera that I suddenly had in my hand. He was excited and he smiled and bid me adieu and got packed away in a casket with his wife.

“What’s happening?” I asked my friend next to me.

“That’s what they do”.

Then the construction crews started morphing people around us into caskets with the dead inside them. The dead woke up one last time and smiled and winked and did a last dance goodbye as they were packed away in a long, long line.