with the all-knowing and peaceful face, an ageless eighty year-old, this dark and smooth-skinned man with his yellow-orange robe, sitting alongside a dirt road in front of green grass fields with high mountains on the horizon: He tells me to go, that I can go now, and to repeat these words, and, if it feels right, to pass on this mantra, these words, to others who may feel this same feeling and sense of an always-continuing peace when they are pronounced.
I am disoriented. From here the feeling that stopped with this man has begun again and carried me through some time zone, a timewarp, to where I am in a room, a familiar one, and I am in a bed looking up at these faces. I can barely make them out, but they appear to know me and are smiling down at me just a couple of feet away from me. It seems that they are saying something:
“Look at the cute little baby. Isn’t he cute? Coochie-coochie-coo. Yes, isn’t he? Jesse is such a good baby. Now go to sleep and rest. Let’s put on some lullaby music, and I’ll rock the crib,” the familiar voice gently says, with so much affection that it brings tears to my eyes. I have the feeling that it was my mother and grandmother talking to me. I was a little baby, but it seems so real and fresh and alive now, as I feel everything.
Oh, what is that? It’s like a giant pyramid, except it’s a kind of ride, and it whirls around and around, faster and faster. I am suddenly strapped onto the side of it, and I spin around. I am laughing and crying. I feel sick and I want to throw up, and out comes this electric-blue liquid out of my mouth, and it splashes all over me as I turn blue, and everything I see has this bluish tint to it.
The ride has stopped now, and I see myself asleep in a bed somewhere. It is very comfortable, and the bed has four posts coming up out of the corners. It is made with gold all over it and has a white linen covering and is draped over the posts, as I look up and around. It is as if a gauze-whitish fabric has been placed over my eyes. Everything – these objects and paintings and walls and ceiling and oil lamps and bedroom – seems like a fourteenth century room. It is as if I am in a museum or palace, looking around at these beautiful antiques, only I belong here and they are mine. I see only foggily and am not focusing. I am getting rather tired and want to go back to sleep . . .
I have been to so many places, and for so long. It has been a tiring trip, and now the sensation is one of sleeping and floating somewhere and being carried away as if on a magic carpet floating in the air and across the sky through the clouds . . .
What was that? I feel a little twig hit my face. I must have been sleeping. How long has it been? Oh yes, I must have drifted off. For a second I don’t know where I am — and now I feel as though I’m sinking into the ground, the wonderful grass and sunshine, and late afternoon breeze rustles the trees. I feel rested, but I vaguely remember someone talking to me in a dream. It was my mother. It was, you know, one of those dreams that is so real, stronger than the waking state, and so meaningful.
Why did I dream of my mother, and how could I have such a vivid dream? Deep inside I feel that this was not just a scene from a dream but a stored memory, an engram: a facsimile of a photoscape of my life, replayed as though on an inner video screen.
I reached to find some meaning and reason for this motherly family visit, with the little baby Jesse talking as if I were maybe a few months old. I was speechless, and even crying a bit, in this real-life dream.
14.
JUXTAPOSITIONS I SUPPOSE,
AND NOW REALITY-PLUS
Where am I? That Jesse, the young star, the Hollywood-born boy growing up with all the promise. The life ahead. The dreams and hopes. A celebrity at birth. The recognition. The cameras and attention. The visitors and status. Everything taken care of.
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end . . . tra la la la . . . Reminiscing. I thought I wouldn’t diverge. I was just sleeping, and now the thoughts keep on and shake up this natural man asleep in the forest. I remember now. What time is it? Already 15:00/3pm, and I must go, get up, rush out of here, back into time, the normal waking civilized man: oh, have to be, do, and hurry someplace soon.
“Fuck that shit, man,” another voice from somewhere inside says. “Relax, kick back, take it easy. You still have time. You were just relaxing, communing, and now you are going to spoil it all to run back and hurry-up to slow down, so try and enjoy yourself in this life now!” Being busy, taking care of business, appointments to meet, promises to keep, people to see, time slots and commitments, responsibilities. Ho hum.
What’s that over there? I think it’s a human being, lying on a blanket way across the meadow on the other slope. There is still a rather pleasant sun, a late-afternoon atmosphere that makes you not want to leave just yet.
I think I see a woman, yes, with her top off — really? She is lying down and reading a book. I must still be dreaming. I don’t know if she is aware of me. I can’t disappear, and besides, my male radar is beginning to take notice, wondering what this feline creature looks like. Why am I interested when I have my girlfriend Anna to see in a couple of hours? Well, despite my better nature I find myself getting up, picking up my backpack and wandering over, casually, not running, with my heartbeat four times normal and saliva dripping out of my mouth, but the magnetic male impulse to gawk a little closer has kicked in. This is Austria: They allow this here, no big thing.
I am moving a little faster. I see a fraulein of about twenty five, thin, with light brown hair, completely engrossed in some reading material. She doesn’t notice me, or pretends not to notice me, as I move closer and closer.
I’m within a few feet of her. This is the real thing. I notice her breasts are lying flat, a little spread-out, and are rather small but perfect, with dark-brownish nipples just starting to poke out, as if to say come on over and suck them, you handsome guy: I’m inviting you. I am a bit shocked at my thoughts, but not surprised, having spent many years in the male domain, in search of the female species, alluring and seductive, and not often going anywhere.
Boy, I would give anything to just lie down there and carry out that very thought, with no conversation. I feel a stirring in my loins — not just a stirring, a rising. I am getting a rise on, and it is filling the not-very-allowable space in my jeans, but not enough just yet to spoil any awaiting introduction or casual “come on” line. I look down at her short but shapely legs and her V line. No, maybe I will sublimate and just look a little closer.
She rolls over now and glances up at me coming towards her. Actually, I’m right next to her now, looking straight down as her breasts hang down, ever so cutely, and shake a little. I think she is a little surprised, and the ground now hides most of her front side as she shifts a little to get comfortable on the ground. Her back is tanned, and she has these little blue short-shorts on. She is gorgeous, with dark brown hair in a flip, an alluring smile, a cute turned-up nose, and a sexy, luscious mouth. Her cute little ass is tight, perfect.
She neither gives me a come-on-over nor a nasty look. I decide to smile and pretend I am not excited and was really only on a walk when I accidentally stumbled upon this spring nymphet lying in the grass. I nod hello and ask what she is reading. She says that it’s something by Dostoevsky, but that she can’t really get into it. I see that the book is half-open, and maybe she is on page 560 or so. I say, “That’s pretty heavy stuff. I could never spend the time it takes to read all those pages.” I continue, “That’s what I say, but then I find myself caught up in the story, and I can’t put it down,” She replies with something else similarly muddled.
She seems friendly, unassuming, not self-conscious at all, rather proud, as she should be. She now turns over again, facing me, so I can see all of her breasts, now with the firm, lush nipples coming out a little further towards me. They look like little cherries, ready to eat. At least I project that she is showing them to me, but she automatically begins to read again, as if to say, “Gee, I’d like to talk, but I have these hundreds of pages to read and now that you’ve inspected me or we’ve had our accidentally-on purpose meeting and you are aroused, let’s leave it at that. I like to play innocent, and besides, my man is coming here soon to meet me.” The latter thought quickly dissipates as I hear myself saying, “Well,