Walking the Line
Day Two of Snow. No heat yet. Cry for me. Cry again. But October 15 is the date that by law we must have heat! So close. ...
**
I’m terrified of heights, even in dreams. And yet I jumped out of a plane last night somewhere over Russia, though I recall it being fairly near Moscow but country still.
Is there country near Moscow? Or is it overwhelmed by suburban sprawl? I think nothing in Russia is a suburb. My mother equates the Russians with slowness. When construction takes too long, you might hear her say, "Even the Russians could do this faster."
So. A friend had leapt from the plane before me and I was chasing her. Threatening people were looking for her there in Russia. People back home here in Minnesota wanted to know what had become of her.
(It seems the movie Brick influenced the pursuit plot, though the skydiving angle is my own freelance, or perhaps the product of two recent trans-oceanic flight viewings of Mission Impossible 3 and its Shanghai base-jumping scene.)
For whatever reason I needed to wait until 1000 feet before I could open my chute. I had one of those altimeter watches with the horrifying blood-splatter red zone that, inexplicably, fills a head with the sound of warning buzzers when the dial enters that zone. I let go of the part of the chute I was holding. (I don’t even know what this crap is called. It’s like a starter chute, you know?) I pulled the cord just to be sure.
**
In real life, the chute pack would probably give birth to a baby grand, a tall lamp, an anvil and a flock of geese, each bird of which would look at me quizzically as if to say, “I really don’t know how you’re going to get out of this one, bub.” But the chute went up, jerked, and I woke, though even in my waking I added rough landings on a Moscow street, a field, the edge of a cliff. Winds pulled me into a canyon. I was stranded.
The alarm went off. I woke again.
The line between when one is awake and not awake is not so distinct.
**
Three people I’d like to have dinner with, and I mean at the same time:
Bill Clinton
Joan Jett
Stephen King
I’d be willing to bet some good stories would unfold here.
Three people from a table in hell:
Donald Rumsfeld
Michael Irving
Carrot Top
Can you think of a more awkward conversation? Can you?
-cK
**
I’m terrified of heights, even in dreams. And yet I jumped out of a plane last night somewhere over Russia, though I recall it being fairly near Moscow but country still.
Is there country near Moscow? Or is it overwhelmed by suburban sprawl? I think nothing in Russia is a suburb. My mother equates the Russians with slowness. When construction takes too long, you might hear her say, "Even the Russians could do this faster."
So. A friend had leapt from the plane before me and I was chasing her. Threatening people were looking for her there in Russia. People back home here in Minnesota wanted to know what had become of her.
(It seems the movie Brick influenced the pursuit plot, though the skydiving angle is my own freelance, or perhaps the product of two recent trans-oceanic flight viewings of Mission Impossible 3 and its Shanghai base-jumping scene.)
For whatever reason I needed to wait until 1000 feet before I could open my chute. I had one of those altimeter watches with the horrifying blood-splatter red zone that, inexplicably, fills a head with the sound of warning buzzers when the dial enters that zone. I let go of the part of the chute I was holding. (I don’t even know what this crap is called. It’s like a starter chute, you know?) I pulled the cord just to be sure.
**
In real life, the chute pack would probably give birth to a baby grand, a tall lamp, an anvil and a flock of geese, each bird of which would look at me quizzically as if to say, “I really don’t know how you’re going to get out of this one, bub.” But the chute went up, jerked, and I woke, though even in my waking I added rough landings on a Moscow street, a field, the edge of a cliff. Winds pulled me into a canyon. I was stranded.
The alarm went off. I woke again.
The line between when one is awake and not awake is not so distinct.
**
Three people I’d like to have dinner with, and I mean at the same time:
Bill Clinton
Joan Jett
Stephen King
I’d be willing to bet some good stories would unfold here.
Three people from a table in hell:
Donald Rumsfeld
Michael Irving
Carrot Top
Can you think of a more awkward conversation? Can you?
-cK
posted by cK at 10:30
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