Posted by Alli (160.129.204.43) on February 06, 2002 at 14:00:03:
In Reply to: Alli Darlin' posted by pancho on February 06, 2002 at 12:09:56:
i had a great love for mardi gras masks when i was little... you know, those ceramic painted faces, perfectly symmetric, some have heart-shaped tears frozen on their cheeks, other shapes, ribbons hanging curled or straight from the places where ears should be. they are so lifeless & so perfect.
i wanted to look like them, for some reason. i drew them all the time; i was obsessed with them even through high school. when i owned one that i liked, i stopped caring for them.
so the dream takes place in my parents' country home - we have forest on 3 sides of the house, & there's one patch of woods i was particularly frightened of - the neighbors were always strangely silent, except for their hunting dogs & big trucks barreling down the long driveway that led to their house. the dream is set in that part of the forest. it is night, & i walk outside, all alone & barefoot - the air is warm, the Southern crickets & bugs that normally suffocate & hypnotize me to sleep with their droning & rhythmic chirping are silent, & the earth is cool, slightly moist so it feels solid - no dust where i step. it is odd. i feel death - it is in this windless silence, hanging around me like a heavy velvet cloak. i find the path i usually take through those woods, & the skinny trees, normally twisting, dancing with the smallest breeze are frozen, lifeless. as i near the path's entrance, i see the shattered ceramic masks, nails driven mercilessly through their foreheads & cheeks... some are just painted fragments, others the majority of a face. it seems as if the masks portray the agony of the trees, & i begin to cry. but i also continue to walk, like a zombie - mystified, curious, & hurt. i know that there's a dark, unshaven man with a hammer & a bag of nails who is trying to lure me to the end of this path, & i can feel that he wants to kill me. i am still afraid, but i keep walking, anyway... i don't know why, but i think it is because i'd rather it be me than anymore of those beautiful trees...