A Letter to a Friend

Guzel,

The mind has a strange way of reminding ourselves of the important or forgotten things in life.  Mine did a couple of nights ago in a vivid dream.  You and I had the wonderful gift of flight and we could fly as far and as fast or as high as we wanted as long as we held our breath, but as soon as we released the air in our lungs, we would plummet towards Earth until we could gasp up another breath and hold it again.

We flew and flew, to places near and far, we saw places we've never seen and wanted, and places we knew by heart.  The immense reality. . .no, the visceral realness of the sensation of flying was incredible, captivating and undeniably unique and we laughed and discussed with each other the good fortune of birds to have such a trait.  We were as free as children with arms extended and making motor noises through pursed lips on a playground.  But then, we fell from the sky. . .

. . .and the air became water and we swam as do the fish.  We swam and swam until I realized that I was still holding my breath, so I exhaled and inhaled the sea water knowing my mistake instantly.  I was not a fish.  I was a man.  And I was drowning slowly. The rapidly passing thoughts in my mind became darker, slower and weaker, but in my last moment I understood that you were a bird, and, a fish -- and I was only a man.  You swam away and I died, adrift in the dark, quiet waters.

And as with all dreams, those scenes passed naturally into the next where I found myself in Jamaica playing dominoes with a group of old Jamaican men.   I spoke perfect Jamaican patois with them and I completely understood their wonderful gibberish too.  I even realized that they weren't actually men, but old rusted robots with corroded levers and whirring gears that controlled their motor skills.  Their square heads were mopped in dreadlocks of wire, angular arms and slitted eyes moved in creeping, hitched motions and during our discussions we argued the futility of man's existence and the common misconception (as they see it) that machines, or robots in this case, were only as perfect as the person who designed them.  They were very conceited robots and claimed they were perfect even when one or another of the robots would seize and the next one would reach over to oil a joint or sand a bit of rust from a gear.  I smoked a cigarette and watched the sun set over the water as the robots bickered amongst themselves until it became too dark to see.

Then I awoke.

I hope you are not a fish or a robot.  Vardaman's mother was a fish.

Yours Truly,

Burnt Toast