From a long way off I hear the beating of
a heart and feel the heat of rushing blood
that lights the memory of another time, far
away, when life was more pleasant and
the strains of accordion music filled the
summer air, punctuated by the woof of a
tin tuba backed by the pandemonium of a
brass section gone mad to the rhythm of a
raspy, snare drum and the sawing of a
lone mechanical fiddle in a glass case.
Lights and mirrors flash past me in a
cardboard world of cacophony and
sensation as I grip the undulating brass
rope with the whitening knuckles and
damp palms of one lost and forgotten in
the shimmering ecstasy of a fine summer
madness that dances to a misshapen tune
of striped clowns with flower pot hats and
checkered shoes that hiss as they slide
across the floor.
Steam bursts forth from the gold-painted
pipes of a red calliope, and shiny ceramic
unicorns bob up and down on the swirling
carousel that spins through the night of
my soul as brightly colored lights twinkle
past in a blur of insanity. Someone passes
me a puff of pink cotton candy as I swing
by, and I hear the echo of laughter fading
in the swish of the nether wind that knows
no beginning and no end.
I hear the staccato death-rattle of round,
black castanets, reminiscent of a dancing
skeleton on a Halloween string at the
midnight hour of oblivion where the souls
of the vanquished huddle in the shadows
of good times past, and I gasp for air,
struggling for life. Round and round I go
with dizzying speed as I feel driven by a
daemon out of control, tilting first this
way and that, a spinning top of fancy that
has loosed the underpinnings of my mind,
so that it sloshes back and over, clutching
for stability that is lost in the deafening
shrieks of the damned.
Then as the cotton packing drains from
my consciousness, I awaken upon my
damp pillow and feel the cool hand of my
mother upon my fevered brow. The soul
death hour has came and passed me by,
leaving me to return once more to the joys
of childhood. Charon did not take me this
time, and the crisis has passed. I wonder
what I will be when I grow up as I ask,
"Can I have a drink of water, Mamma?"
