flying high

first dream i remember in detail for quite sometime and it was a doozy. there were some previews before the main feature, one involving a very cool old lady who was sitting at the end of my bed when i awoke. she was very "un-old-lady-like" meaning not the stereotypical grouchy, wrinkled, nay-saying nelly. more like a fairy or a goddess in an old lady costume. she smiled at me and giggled when i yawned and stretched. her suitcases were packed and sitting by the front door. she was wearing a suit  the color of ripe pinot noir grapes that had shimmering gold thread woven through the fabric. it seemed bereft of the seemingly mandatory polyester worn by most people over fifty-five.

i didn't ask who she was or why she was in my home partly because she posed no threat but more so because i felt as if i should know her and it would be rude to ask. 

she finally spoke as i got dressed and came out into the kitchen to join her for coffee. she said, "i can tell you're unique because i saw the bullet." 

i searched my mind for what that might mean and she went on to explain how the necklace i used to wear around my neck (in a past life?) was the bullet that killed my husband in battle and the only reason i sold something so valuable was because i needed money to feed our child.

i sold it on craigslist.com, b.t.w.

pretty cool idea now that i think of it, sort of akin to billy-bob and angelina's blood filled amulets professing their endless-ish love. 

my old lady-muse must away as her people come for her. they're going to disneyland and i question how that can be possible when we're in the east.

"you must mean disneyworld," i say and they smile politely and say, "no dear, there's a small branch of disneyland over at the biltmore house." of course there is. i'm dreaming.

guess that was a rather long preview, makes me want to see the actual movie when it comes out.

pop to the scene where a girl in a lime green spandex tank top is driving a jeep with its top down on the freeway. she's tan and her long, sun-bleached hair is whipping spastically around her face.

i believe i'm watching the scene from another car but it doesn't take long for me to figure out that she is acutally me. 

she/me starts speeding and looking around. i see that there's another car pursuing her and she doesn't look happy about it. it's some guys in a pimp car, something white or gold circa 1970-something. 

she steps on the gas and the jeeps v-6 picks up and gains her a little ground but the boys are relentless and floor their beast too.

suddenly the girl makes an executive decision and pulls a hard right onto an off-ramp, throwing the pimps off for a second. it all seems to happen in slo-mo. as she accelerates into the curve of the hairpin turn she looks back quickly to see if they're following behind. in that instant the car hits the apex of the improperly banked curve which make her slightly under-inflated good-year 

tires give just enough to throw the whole jeep out of balance. before she can correct it she's toppling over and over, grabbing wildly for the rollbar and praying to jesus-god-buddha-mary and oprah to make her a happy statistic.

she notes that she is not only conscious in this moment, but strangely calm.

the jeep finally comes to a hard, final slam down on the pavement near a big white building across the freeway. so hard in fact that it manages to disengage her from the vehicle while she's still wearing her seatbelt, the seat and a sizable portion of the car's metal frame.

people have stopped their cars on the road and are standing with their mouths agape, some have the sense to call 911 but most are in shock and stand silently like deer. 

when the girl realizes she is alive and unharmed for the most part, she stands up with much effort, pulling the seat and frame with her. her eyes are wild and her hair is knotted. her clothes are torn. 

she looks like a feral cat as she begins walking purposefully towards the big white building. she looks like the hulk in her dirty green tank top with her muscles straining to pull the metal enhanced chair behind her. the boys who caused it all are there and they chain-smoke guiltily but can't stop watching, amazed. they walk towards her but she picks up her speed and begins to run. it gets very movie-like at this point as she runs like a cheetah and of course it's magic light and jimi hendrix begins to play. not sure which song but i'll leave it up to mark mothersbaugh to choose when he does the soundtrack. 

end scene as we lose sight of her and all the rubber-neckers are standing around the building, now joined by firetrucks, policemen and a news crew.

flash to a close up shot of girl inside building, which is really like a huge hangar and she's running fast, faster, speed-of-light fast and becomes almost a blur as she jumps, superhero like into an enormous jumbo-jet. the car seat she's in becomes the airplane seat and the metal from the ex-jeep melds into the plane perfectly.

she sits there breathing heavily, a huge smile on her face. tears roll down her cheeks and she begins to laugh maniacally. 

it's an international airplane and she's the only one on board. she's never flown before, which was why at the moment she was tumbling through the air in the jeep, thinking she was going to die, she wished for this one last thing.

she thought of all the obstacles that had been in her way for so long, how many men she had blamed for her loss of time, self-respect and money. how many excuses, reasons, justifuckations.

god it had taken her long enough. 

but she finally did it. she alone. she and her mind and her will and being pushed to the very edge of existence.

she reached for her glass of champagne and nodded to the pilot who looked a lot like bob marley and they flew off into the sunset. 

as she looked out the window she saw the people below looking up with awe-filled faces. she saw the place where she had emerged from the wreckage of the jeep and noticed that an ambulance was there and a gurney was being loaded into it. she saw her family there and remembered she hadn't talked to them in quite some time. in fact the last time they had seen her she was angry and depressed. she made a note to call them as soon as she got back.

the last thing she saw as the plane rose higher into the wild blue yonder, as the people and cars below started looking like miniatures of themselves, was the obvious lump of a sheet-covered body on the gurney. the wind blew and she thought she saw a flash of green underneath it where the wind tossed the sheet aside, but it was hard to tell for sure. 

she sat back and finished her champagne and let the metal dream bird take her wherever it was she needed to go.