| Self-Destruction Dreams by Vito Capobianco |
| There is a place to turn, a dark corner of a plane. Its floors are dirty and will leave you stained, but it�ll be okay. Okay to rest, to gather thoughts. To hide. To plan an escape, a last ditch full throttle wild horse break for it. In your yellow flower dress, tattered and dirtied, you lean in real hard. Catch your breath. You�ll be running again soon. Your brown hair is sweat slicked and tangled. Fingers are sore, torn and stained from digging so hard. Blood blisters are of no concern in moments like this. You turn your face to the corner and breath in puffs of cloud. Mascara runs with tears down your cheeks; you�re the only girl I know that wears mascara to bed. I remember when we used to sit on the balcony and drink noon tea. In your yellow flower dress I told you your legs were like porcelain. The wind would whip our hair out of style, but you were still beautiful. We would laugh, the sound drowned out by that same wind at times. You told me things seemed brighter now. Vibrant, I believe is the word you used. For me there were always the clouds, I never saw the clear, blue skies you raved over. Only the inky black lightening clouds and sheets of dirt looking rain-- you know how rain looks in the distance. Can you imagine that? The two images, split the sky in between us? One side clear blue, forever, the other gray sheets of dirt. Isn�t that okay? I guess you wouldn�t run if it was. But badminton was fun wasn�t it? I always wore the white turtleneck sweater and white khakis on those days. You still wore the yellow dress and some times the wind would bless me with a glance�And let us not forget your mother. She would watch from the attic, how ghastly it would seem. I would look to the sky and catch her vacuum packaged face in the window. She would always watch us. Rather strange don�t you think? It always brought me back to the night we first met�three years ago I believe. I had just been robbed by the side of the road, my arm broken. I stumbled in a haze of unclear thought through your property. You didn�t seem frightened when you saw me advancing, and what a sight I must have been, staggering, dirty and torn. You stood under an apple tree. Your yellow dress seemed as if the wind would tear it off at any moment. Your hair as well seemed as if it would just fly out. It was raining hard� really I must have looked a mess. But still you were kind. I asked you to call the police or an ambulance, I don�t quite recall. You stood silent, staring into the sky. It was a devil of a storm and you seemed not to mind at all. I too remained silent after my first plea; drenched and broken I leaned into the tree. I believe I began to cry (the robbery was quite a scare). After I had finished, you turned to me and asked a strange question. You said �if we were all to die today and a new race of man was to take our place, what would they think of us? If they began to dig, as we have done, would they not think we were a race of the most macabre? Would we not seem obsessed with the past? Would they see our greatest buildings and find that they were there merely to house the dead? Would they trace all our eyes to Houses of Parliament and find that all we did was plan to kill? That millions of voices mattered not and only the few loudest, most crazed were ever heard? Would they then turn inward and say: �we will not be like this�? Would they celebrate life? Would they love each other? Or would our need for answers pass like some newly awakened virus? And aren�t answers just an extension of power? Would they too kill for no reason at all? Just to see the blood flow?� Then you stopped and looked me in the eye, �Yes, of course,� you said. �Mother and I will tend to you.� And you stopped yet again. As if you just realized where you were you looked into the trees branches. On tip toes you stretched for an apple. I could not help but steal the smallest of a glance as your dress rose, exposing your legs to me for the first time. You brought down an apple, a swollen ripe thing and offered it to me, but only after first tasting of it yourself. Taking a bite, the crunch seemed to make my brain swell, it must have been the attack but I felt a flutter. We made our way to the mansion; I call it this even though you would protest it to be merely an estate, although the two terms dealt not with size, but purpose. You said (during one of our many teas) that a mansion was a large residence, purely there for the sake of living and an estate was a dirtier word. An estate was a residence built with purpose other then comfort (although comfort was kept in mind). They are built to govern over slaves, you�d say, and that the property was so large because your great-grandfather was a plantation owner, a tobacco millionaire. �The fucking scum of the earth�, I believe were your exact words. It was always so good to hear your voice and see your lips form those words. It was the only time you seemed to have any passion. As we drew close, your home seemed to loom out over the hill. Rise up in some grand response to our approach. As the features began to take shape, I swear I saw your mother in the window. This being the first time it frightened me although I did not respond to my fear (the shock of the robbery still left me dull and quieted). The first thing that struck me was the entrance, a truly grand and imposing home you did have. I supposed, (during a break of a badminton game you did agree), that these estates were created in such excessive design (wide open rooms, great pillars and hardwood and marble floors) to fill slaves with shock and awe whence they came from their meager shanties discreetly hidden in the forestry. The bone white building of the corrupt businessman. I do recall a comment once made (perhaps over tea) that in saying that your great-grandfather was a corrupt businessman, I was being rather redundant and stale. You always did have a way of putting me down. Straight away you took me to the bath. I began to become sleepy and you had to undress and bathe me yourself. If I had not been in such great pain and so terribly disoriented, I believe I would have become embarrassed by my nakedness. Although you did do me the favor of ignoring my genitalia, for which I am thankful. I recall, just moments before blacking out, a muted vision of you crouched down scrubbing the dirt, muck and blood off my face and arms with a damp cloth. Your dress slid further up your legs and the first comparison of your skin to porcelain was made as you pushed up against the tub. With that image in my mind, I slipped into a sleep despoiled by abysmal dreams. First I recalled running from my assailants. Unlike the reality, in the dream they wore masks of dogs faces, over large floppy masks of crazed looking hounds, tight blue jeans and black leather jackets. In this sequence of the dream, I can barely keep away from them, the highway twists and turns, rolling like the ocean of cement. I stumble and they are upon me, the quickest of the pack appears to be a Great Dane. He�s barking in my face, �We are all dead men waiting for the strings that hold our corpses up to snap. We all fall�. Another animal, a Pekinese is rifling through my pockets. Satisfied with their pickings, they run off without breaking my arm and I am left feeling sickly. This portion of the nightmare seems to fade off; the next part seems to be an actual waking memory spliced with the cartoonishness of the dreams I must have had afterwards. In my waking dream, the first thing I� aware of is the agonizing pain in my arm. I start to cry out but you are there and stop me with a finger to my lips. You�ve changed (which is what leads me to believe that this is, in fact, a dream because I�ve never seen you wear anything but that yellow dress). Now you wear a bobby�s uniform complete with tight hard cap and badge. It did seem a bit small, for it rode up your ankles revealing thin white socks as you crossed your legs. In your gloved hands you held the shaft of a great sun umbrella which, twirling gently behind you, seemed to unravel and fill up the ceiling. Its dizzying effect forced me to look straight into your eyes (not that you are unpleasant to behold, far be it from true). I noticed that time rushed rapidly passed in the dream and your eye shadow darkened, spread up past your eyebrows; then began to melt and drip down your face. You spoke strange words: �Look,� you said, your eyes indicating the ceiling. I looked up and, at the time it seemed perfectly normal, saw that the ceiling was made of faces. Purplish skin sown together to form a disgusting canopy of flesh, it hung low seeming to throb as if it was all a part of some greater being; like it was the skin of some giant abomination with blood pulsing beneath. Each face lacked eyes and nose, the flesh around those areas was brown from dried blood, cracked and charred. There was one face directly above my own. I stared, taking in its details. Black eyebrows and tufts of hair curled and congealed together with dried blood that seemed to have formed some sort of gelatin. As I watched, the canopy of faces gets lower with each throb and I did feel a terrible creaking pain in my jaw as it is forced open by no one. The face was very close then, so close a tuft of hair tickled under my nose. A voice so quiet that I could barely hear it begins to pour forth from the face even though its lips did not move. It said �death is surreal and elusive. A dream, a hope for release,� and from empty eye sockets a thick liquid like your running eye shadow drips into my open mouth, fills it. I can�t move to spit it out so I swallow. You lean in real close and kiss me; your tongue tastes like red apples. Pulling away you whisper �falling pieces of misinterpretation, a face like corduroy couches reflected in the ceiling�. I can feel the dark liquid inch its way down my throat. I swallow deeply to move it on its way, which doesn�t seem to help much. My mouth fills with saliva while the oozing eye shadow settles inside of me. I feel close to vomiting, but I resist because I know you want it to stay deep inside. I feel it pool, images of oil slicks invade my mind now. Then there is darkness, sleep. |