Fading in and out, I wait for the bird of sleep to come and take me away with it. I twist my head on the pillow and turn the radio up slightly, a murmur in the dark.
Finally, the bird swoops in and I glide away on its back. Into the fog at first, then we circle over a lush green valley. It’s beautiful. In this valley, the woman found her husband and baby, their bellies carved open. I look around, is that why this place is so empty? Yes, the kidnapped girls were never found…there’s not a trace of them….
Oh, no! I say. What can we do about this? The bird’s eyes are big and sad. We have to understand, it says, that we cannot bomb our way out of this situation. So in that case…? The bird bows its head and weeps as it says, perhaps, economic sanctions….
The clouds are purple and red underneath us. Once again, we swoop in for a landing, this time on a gleaming beach. I find a giant shell and kneel down next to it in the sand. The sapphire waves roll in. What a perfect day! There’s a history of discrimination here, whispers a voice inside the shell. What’s that? I want to look for treasure! Years of oppression cannot be reversed in five minutes, you know. Whoever’s living inside that shell is ruining my dream.
Take me somewhere else, bird of dreams. But it’s too late. The bird’s wings are drooping. It’s tired. I tried to pull my family out of the rubble, but I wasn’t able to. Everything was on fire their bodies were bloodied charred my eyes fly open.
And that is why I stopped listening to the BBC World Service at night.
12/10/2015 at 7:39 am
Wow. Powerful. We are constantly bombarded by the bad stuff, aren’t we? And there’s so much bad stuff.
12/10/2015 at 8:25 pm
Yes, bad news is ever present. I decided to at least stay away from it at night! In other news, you rock–thank you so much for reblogging 🙂
12/11/2015 at 6:09 am
You’re welcome!
12/10/2015 at 7:40 am
Reblogged this on Praying for Eyebrowz and commented:
Powerful. Eurobrat.wordpress.com
12/13/2015 at 3:20 pm
Ah, I see you’ve taken advantage of Oregon’s recent legalization of a certain plant! 🙂
12/13/2015 at 6:37 pm
Too funny! But nope, still don’t like the effects. As you can see, I don’t even need it all that much….
12/14/2015 at 11:38 am
Don’t like the effects??? Unless you get some kind of allergic reaction, the effects are more like “life long dreams” to me….My side effects are the ability to temporarily forget life’s unending bullshit, crack a non-ironic smile & maybe even an occasional (non-sarcastic) laugh and, sometimes, the wonderful ability to drift away to another world that doesn’t remotely resemble this Hell on Earth.
And then there’s the ultra-rare good night’s sleep. Without the medicinal brownies, I get about about 2-3 good night’s sleeps a year. And it usually makes me hungry…and horny…Ahhhhhh….I get it now!….The loss of inhibition in those departments does generate more unwanted side effects for women.
But me, I can’t wait until new PM (and former “Red Diaper Baby”) Justin Trudeau fulfills his campaign promise to make it legal here. I don’t care how fat, or horny, I get! The women I “land on” 300Kg from now might care…but not me! 🙂
12/14/2015 at 8:22 pm
Hahaha, too funny. I don’t know about loss of inhibition….I had a sense of detachment from myself that I really didn’t enjoy. Now, I say this while fully understanding that a lot of people take mind-altering substances precisely because they want to detach from their problems and lives. I guess I like me and like being attached to myself 🙂 But I hope for your sake that you can partake of your favorite hobby legally!