When logic and proportion

Have fallen sloppy dead

And the White Knight is talking backwards

And the Red Queen's off with her head

Remember what the Dormouse said

Feed your head - Grace Slick, 1967

So I sat in the reluctant rocker and let the combined effect of heat, beer and food overtake me; it was a blissful if only temporary exit from reality. But the heat dreams that came were strange and confusing yet somehow didn’t seem quite like dreams; unlike most dreams this has never faded from my mind. Strange days indeed.

Usually dreams are relatable to something in your present or past, you can find the tiny ties if you remember those dreams long enough. This one was completely unconnected, it was ‘unworldly’ to say the very least.

I found myself in a haze that slowly cleared to reveal an enormous but unfinished tapestry. That tapestry itself was everywhere and everything, even odder is that it seemed to be everywhen. Bizarrely I was also part of that tapestry, my mind still shudders when I try contemplate the everything which that tapestry was.

The problem was that tapestry was and wasn’t, there was also an endless curtain of strings which came from every direction; directions I couldn’t grasp. I reached out and touched a bit of string and suddenly my mind was full of someone’s perception and feelings, none of which was within my realm of understanding. I simply stood, as if in shell shock, riveted in another’s unfathomable existence; not lost in wonder but lost in confusion. My mind rebelled as I attempted to understand and I became nauseous.

I felt a burning hot/cold grip on my arm as I was pulled free of the thread. The hand that gripped my wrist was many things at the same time; I was in awe, frightened and even angered at this saving hand. The worst came when the face defied recognition, it wouldn’t stay. It was but wasn’t a face that I could understand. The words though, those words saved me.

As I was held tight with a delicate claw like grip her hands wove the threads of the emerging tapestry. None if it made sense or was fathomable. If one hand held me how could her hands yet still both weave? How was this a she, but I knew it was. But she spoke in a willowy, soft and frightening voice.

Her manner of speaking was concise and staccato.

“I am of the Weavers.” Well that didn’t tell me much.

“We weave the threads of lives into the fabric.” Ok, that seemed to fit.

“Threads may cross or change direction in the fabric but cannot go back on themselves.” Ok, I get weaving.

She raised my hand and pointed – odd though, she kept weaving.

In the distance I saw a mad character dancing on an edge of the river of threads. How can you be on the shore of a river which flows from every direction? The madman leapt into the stream and grabbed a single thread, he shuddered for just a moment and then threw the thread back up against the stream.

He was repulsed from the threads and cast outward aflame like a meteor across the sky. But that thread was no longer in the same when, the same place but a new when.

Again she spoke.

“Havoc yet again, he is tiresome.

“Threads cannot be damaged, only woven.

“He has placed that thread out of when, it reconnected but in a new when.

“We shall weave it into the new when.”

“What?” Was all that I could manage.

I was alone again and sweaty with afternoon sleep.

I was also really fucking confused.

**** ****

Someone was trying to talk to me but my mind was still full of dreamscape, they spoke words that made no sense to me at the moment; I was still half in the fog of dreams. With a sudden, mighty shove I pushed myself erect. On my feet, shaking my head to clear it; that damned person wouldn’t stop talking so a paced a little and tried to get my grip. Abrupt exits from afternoon nap dreams has never been one of my strong points, my head was still in a fog. I found my cup and chugged the last of the now warm beer, I simply held it out and asked for more. I also asked for some water please to wash my face awake.

It had to be 95° in the shade and the humidity was heavy in the air, swimming through as you walked almost seemed like an option. Times like these I truly missed Pacific coastal living. Flies and skeeter’s were everywhere, Aunty had a balm to keep them off of you but still the incessant sound of insect life was almost as bad as living near a freeway. There was simply a constant hum.

I knew that life was important to our existence, we’d slowly learned that by the time the modern era realized the mistakes that had been made. Even the most annoying of insects were vital to our existence. My brain finally found its way into gear again and I heard the sound of splashing water and became intrigued. Of course first I had to address this endless stream of words that were being run at me.

It was SillyClaire of course and she was full of excitement, I must come and see what had been done in my absence and during my nap. I could see Timmons’s hand at work here for the décor strongly leaned towards the river worker and marvel upon marvels we actually had a bar top. It still sat on an array of barrels but it was a fairly decent bar countertop.

Everything reeked of fresh paint but with the shutters all open it was starting to air out. It was clean, grime of decades had been scrubbed away and you could actually see the grain of the wood used to build the floor. Upstairs the bedrooms were all upgraded to almost two-star accommodations with real beds and clean linen.

I wanted to sit down and enjoy a cold beer but was drug outside to see my tub.

Hell’s Bells they had built it.

I had a fully enclosed, private bathing tub.

Heaven had come to earth on this hot and muggy day.