Chapter 14

We crashed landed on a pleasant, mint smelling lawn, tumbling away from each other. We were surrounded by candy trees, flowers, and mushrooms, and a chocolate river flowed away from a chocolate fall, frothing where it boiled over the rocks. A hauntingly familiar melody sounded in my head.

“OMG,” Kim said. “Candy mushrooms!”

“Wait, don’t eat anything!” I warned, but it was too late. Each of my colleagues had already began to consume the terrain. I don’t know if you ever had to suffer through the Odyssey, but my number one complaint was that the Captain started off pretty stupid, wanting to experience everything and was getting his men killed in the process, but by the end, the Captain was smart, and his crew was stupid, like they had been drinking out of led cups.

Someone stepped up beside me, planted his cane. “Happens every time,” he said.

My mouth dropped. “Gene…?” I began.

“Eh,” he said, with a halting finger. “Willy.”

I nearly said ‘no fucking way’ but, somehow, I couldn’t make myself cuss in front of Willy. “Willy?”

“The one and only,” Willy assured me.

“Yeah, but Johnny…”

“No, he didn’t. I am the only Willy. I will always be the only Willy. Are we clear on this point?” he said.

“Absolutely, Sir, sorry I doubted,” I said. I became distracted by my colleagues.

Harold and Alodar were chasing invisible butterflies, calling them by name, only Alodar, was circling the tree he was holding for support, where Harold was all over the place. Darlene and Huette were making out with each other. Olympe was humping a mushroom as if it were a Sybian. Kim was laying down, but her body was moving as if she were making love to an invisible man. I found myself growing aroused and wanting to participate as Kim pulled her dress up higher to accommodate her invisible lover. Before long, she was shouting and pulling mint grass out with clenched fists, pushing her pelvis into the sky.

“Welcome to the adult candy land, where we go beyond liqueur is quicker, straight to Iowaska and DMT dreams,” Willy said.

“There is an adult candy land?” I asked.

“Unlike the Johnny guy we’re not discussing, I only play with adults,” Willy said. “Which, brings me to the next part. How would you like to run my chocolate factory?”

“Really?” I asked. “Wait. What about Charlie?”

“He grew up to be an accountant. Very boring. No imagination,” Willy said. “I’ve got girls tied up downstairs, if you like.”

That was random, and distracting, and unexpected, but I had no doubt, as an adult with a chocolate factory of this caliber, I would likely have girls tied up, too. Provided they wanted to be tied up. And there are no shortage of girls who want to be tied up. Even guys who want to be tied up, but I am not interested in being tied, but I am completely aroused by a tied up girl, which I know is wrong on one level, but makes me grateful for the girl who wants to be tied up, which had me wanting to go to downstairs just to see.

“Willy,” I said. “I like this version of you.”

“You grew up, but you never lost your imagination,” Willy said. “It’s why you’re here.”

“I thought Kim brought us here,” I said.

“Oh, you over rode her. You probably wouldn’t have enjoyed where she was about to take you,” Willy said.

I watched my colleagues frolicking while I considered Willy’s offer. I liked his offer, but at the moment it didn’t have the staying power that the Lucas Bubble would have. When I remembered what happened to all the bad kids in the kid’s version of Willy’s chocolate factory, I felt an urgency to get my colleagues out of here.

“I think I should get them out of here while they’re still manageable,” I said.

“Good luck with that,” Willy said, turning to walk away.

“Wait,” I said. He turned back, offering a pleasant and hopeful smile. “May I come back here?”

“I would be immensely pleased if you do,” Willy said. “Feel free to use the lift.”

Willy pointed to a lift free standing in the middle of the mint field. I hadn’t noticed it before, perhaps because Willy had arrived in it, but it was an amazing sight to behold, almost as meaningful as seeing a blue, 1950’s Police Box.

“You mean the great glass elevator?!” I asked, excited.

“The great grass lift! I am British, damn it,” Willy snapped, and walked away.

Oompa Loompas and grays danced and sang in the background as I gathered my colleagues into the lift. Alodar was the easiest. Harold would only move with me if I sang, but if I stopped, he became a statues, staring at an invisible sun. Olympe went with me if I told her “I am a hard tree, hug me” and when I got her to the lift I told her Harold was a sturdier tree and she held onto him, singing to him: “If bushes were trees, the trees would be falling…” I approved of her REM distraction. Kim was difficult. The moment I touched her, I became her invisible lover and she practically raped me all the way to the lift. In another time and place, I would have indulged, drug induced or not, but today, I got her to the lift and hooked her up with Alodar who was like, “Aww, my little sprite.” Darlene and Huette were as difficult as pulling mating dogs on a leash, humping each other and me as tried to direct them. Once we are in the lift, I closed the door, and asked, “Up or down?”

Darlene and Huette each responded, “Going down,” they said, fighting each other for my belt.

“Down it is,” I said, pushing the big down button.

We descended through the earth, through the room where a number of girls were tied in a variety of positions, some with rope, some with straps like bandages, and some with spider webs, and some with the dry mucus left behind by alien tentacles. Darlene and Hutte helped relieve some of my ‘tension’ as we descended past the ‘play room’ and through the earth and out into ‘void.’

Once we were out of the candy bubble, the ‘drug’ like influence left my companions. Alodar and Kim leaned into each other, relieved, and sleepy. Harold seemed unaffected, and simply hugged Olympe in a nonsexual manner. Huette and Darlene paused in their simultaneous treatment of my penis as if it were a harmonica, remembered their affection for each other, their sudden affection for me, each shrugged, and continued. Note to self, remember to clean the glass before returning the lift. I closed my eyes, surrendering to the moment, and when I opened them, the lift had arrived in a large banquet room, a feast in progress.

The lift doors opened.

Darlene and Huette rose beside me, hugging me, their heads on my shoulder, not presently interested in the world outside the lift. Huette wiped her mouth on her sleeve. Olympe and Harold were headed out.

“I think we should stay in the lift,” I told them, but they were already out the door.

Alodar convince Kim to take him to the table so he could eat and were out just as fast. Huette and Darlene kissed me on the cheek and were next to leave.

“Fuck,” I said, pulling up my pants and buckling. I deliberated leaving them here, but felt committed to rescuing them, having gotten them this far.

As I was stepping out, a familiar pair of men were getting in the lift. One was in uniform, and I had the impression, “the Love Boat,” and thought, ‘Oh, this might not be a bad place to visit,’ but the other man was dressed as a priest, collar and all.

“Surely, you’re not leaving,” I asked them.

“You might want to come with us,” the priest said.

“And stop calling call me surely,” the captain said.

The lift doors closed, and the priest winked at me, and they went up and I suddenly felt perturbed I hadn’t tried to stop them, but this is life in the dream matrix. You don’t always hold the awareness and perspective necessary to stay lucid. Just like in the real world, you can be happy one moment, then someone cut you off and you could be cussing the next. The guy that cut you off wasn’t the source of your road rage. The person cutting you off was just a natural obstacle and hazard and a part of driving, and your job, as a responsible driver is to respond accordingly. Anger is not ‘accordingly’ or even practical, and the source of rage is always internal, not external, so if you’re blaming the Universe for your unhappiness, then you’re crazy, because the Universe could care less. Trees will scatter a billion seeds in their life time, and maybe a few hundred will take hold, and maybe only a few of those will scatter their own seeds, which is all to say, statistically, it’s your job to find the light, but it’s no one’s fault if you don’t, not even your own, so stop blaming yourself, too. As the lift disappeared through the ceiling, I felt a portentous ‘déjà vu’ coming on.

A woman came on the stage, wearing a miniskirt that was a collage of boxed colors as if her outfit was designed by Piet Mondrian, with white boots, and again, I was reminded of Alizee, and I liked how she shook her hips and pressed her thighs together and passed that smile like a James Bond Girl who might kiss you or kill you, but when I looked closer, it was Loxy. And then she started singing. “There’s got to be a morning after…”

My stomach sunk. If that wasn’t foreshadowing, I don’t know what the hell foreshadowing is. And I was also, suddenly, very sad, because there was at least a hundred people in this room and there was no way I could save them all, and part of me was regretting not leaving with the Captain and the Priest, which was sort of a great set up for a joke, and then I realized the priest was ‘Gene,’ and wondered if it was coincidence that I was just with another “Gene,’ who was also Willy, and my head was all a jumble. I think I yelled ‘brace yourselves’ as I went towards the stage wall, grabbing Loxy and taking hold of the curtain. That’s when the wave hit the cruise ship we were on and flipped us. I held onto Loxy, rolling us up in the curtain, and when the boat settled upside down, I rolled us back down the curtain and arrived nicely on the ceiling which was now the floor, only Loxy had vanished.

If you ever record your dreams and collect enough of them, you will find that many of them are dialogues between yourself and your unconscious, which classic psychologists will say are overlapping aspects, but I say are completely separate individuals, and it would serve you well to speak directly to your unconscious because she will be your best friend or your worst nightmare, and if you don’t listen to her, she will turn up the volume until you do. Anyway, sometimes your personal rants over power the unconscious trying to speak to you, and my rant about the Poseidon Adventure is focused on the sequel. Yeah, it was visually stunning movie, but they cut out the most important person, the priest. That character, played by Gene, is absolutely crucial for driving the plot, and without that character, there is no moral compass to save folks. I am not making an argument for Christianity per say, and if you watch the original, neither was Gene’s character. Cutting out the priest was not society trying to kill ‘Christianity,” which hard core Christians might argue, but rather, a revelation that society had lost something crucial. In truth, there was no way to remake this movie, because there was no way to include that character, and the people who wrote the script and produce the sequel didn’t even consider the necessity of their character. They had no thoughts at all, but were simply trying to revive something because Hollywood has lost much of its creativity and trying to cash in on nostalgia, as opposed to introducing people to nostalgia with the original. Black and white films should be viewed in black and white. That’s it.

If you want to know how this turns out for most of the people on the boat. Watch the original 1972 film, Poseidon. In the absence of Gene, I felt compelled to take up the spiritual fight and rescue people. With all of my effort, I managed to get six people to the top of the ship, which was now the bottom of the ship, and the seven were, interestingly enough, Alodar, Harold, Kim, Darlene, Huette, and Olympe. And to get them out, I ended sacrificing myself, jumping up to grab the valve wheel and quarrel with God about the injustice of it all, when we’ve been fighting so hard just to stay alive and He keeps testing us, and we’re tired. My mind fragmented, and I heard Loxy singing, “Calling All Angels,” the original Sibbery version with the opening chant summoning Saints. My efforts turning the wheel stopped the steam that allowed my colleagues to pass. I urged them on. Huette didn’t want to leave me, but I promised I would be right behind them.

And then they were gone, in the upper most compartment and I was thinking, what the fuck do I do now? Loxy responded with another song. She sang, “the Part Where you Let Go” by Hem.

And I let go. I disappeared into an oil ring and a ring of fire, which was not a Johnny Cash song.