His heart attack comes at an appropriate age. Everyone is sad; no one is surprised — least of all of him. He sees a flash, like a squiggle across his vision, like a tuner coming untuned, and then he’s floating, facing a ceiling of lights and moving beneath it, feet first, floating on his back through a people-mover-tunnel like under the airports he used to frequent when he was alive.
He rights himself like Peter Gabriel did in the music video and floats into an indoor-mall plaza with an all-glass spinning globe ceiling casting shadows on his eyes like a ceiling fan, and dancers, decked in neon greens and blues, kicking and shuffling along a second floor balcony.
He’s not the only one gawking.
The lights shift into dark purples and reds and direct his eye to a dark door beneath a misty sign promising karaoke and cocktails from the Orient, pineapples and shellfish and fried chicken bits, colorful tiny umbrellas and a soft mist behind the bar.
Music pours out of the door. The bass riptides behind his hips and propels him towards the dance floor. He goes with it, raises his half-closed fists in front of him, bites his lip, and starts to sway his hips in time. Floating high above the dance floor now, he’s never felt this free.
A flash, and he’s outside it all now, walking alone through empty city streets. Traffic lights cast long shadows in the night. In the middle distance, an empty elevated rail-car passes over the street. He turns at the next block, propelled by something he can’t remember. He’s sure he’ll find it somewhere, if only…maybe it’s this way. He staggers and stumbles, but keeps his feet. He looks back over his shoulder. What did he trip on?
Sirens or someone shouting echoes in the distance, not close enough to scare him, but too close to ignore. He stiffens his collar against the night, puts his head down, keeps walking.
He’ll find it somewhere.
A flash of lighting, a crack of thunder, and it’s raining. The water pours down the glass buildings, puddles beside the curbs, mixes with the mess in the street. He lifts his coat over his head and hurries his pace. The sirens or shouts in the distance don’t let up, but they don’t come closer either.
He’ll find it somewhere.
Maybe…there.
The entryway is narrow and long, painted black with black flowing curtains draped along it. Dim floor lights fight against the curtains for dominance, and with every step he takes, every shoulder brush against the curtains, the lights lose. The sticky floor rumbles beneath his feet from the bassline, but his eyes, as he comes out of the entryway, are attracted to the pink lights dancing across the ceiling of the long, wide…
He sits on a couch beneath a streetlight. Behind him, around him, beneath him, the greenest grass, the softest gentlest rollingest hills; above him, above it all, fat white clouds lounging in a sky blue sky. He stands, and everything flickers, just once, but enough to convince him it isn’t real. He reaches down and rips up several pixels of grass. Where the blades broke, sparks of electricity flicker like fingers reaching in desperation for their mother.
He sits back down on the couch and kicks his feet up. It has to be here somewhere. He reaches off to his side, finds the remote, and couch-surfs into oblivion.
[This post was written by request. For a $5 donation to the Bail Project, you can assign me to write a 500-word [minimum] blog post on any topic of your choosing. For more details, read Writing for Bail Money.]