That late evening when the shadows blended thick I walked away from the festivity of lights and laughter into the night. I stepped beyond the perimeter of flashing lights and carnival barkers. Before me I see only the sweltering evening heat of the night. It held another population as I negotiated alleys. I walked deeper into the unlit city accented only by an occasional glow of cigarettes and low voices. I stumbled once or twice upon a sleeping animal, startling them into motion. I stepped over sleeping figures. I walked into a clothesline where fabrics hung limp, resistant to moisture of the stifling humidity. I am enclosed on all sides by dark and low buildings. I hear and see movements within. A hand reached out and tapped me on the shoulder, a figure of a man offering up a pony bottle of whiskey which I declined less I too end up curled in darkness. I thanked him and asked direction to anywhere there was light. My night vision has improved and everything was bathed in half-light. He pointed beyond me.
“There is a carnival back there, but it is not for us,” he drawled. “It is the Carnival of the Dead. The living; we still live in the darkness.”
He left me bewildered as he ambled away. For a moment, I thought of following him. But just for a moment. I moved away from the direction of his pointing.
“You have to keep moving on,” is what I kept hearing. “You are needed ahead.” This gave me a sense of purpose and deliberation in my steps.
I find myself walking on a broader yet unlit street devoid of any vehicles. Couples and individuals appeared and passed without a word. One stopped and I asked where I can find comfort of light. She gestured with her cigarette in the direction of my progress. “Over there, just beyond those high-rises and the river, there is light,” she said as she too was swallowed up by the darkness.
I crossed broad avenues with dead traffic lights. I passed empty cafés and bistros. A young lady’s voice called to me out of the dark. I swallowed hard and kept moving. I felt hands grabbing at my shirttail and pleading movements. I am needed elsewhere—I kept moving.
I had felt its glow before I saw it. The only building, lit and alive it seemed. I quickened my pace as a drying man would to a pool of water. I was elated as I found the doors unlocked. I am on the ground floor of three. It is a music store. Posters of pop stars and other psychedelics lined the wall. I eagerly went on a search for a particular artist only to find everything in the shop was made of wood. Records and tapes, all impossible to play. And dusty, too. A sleepy shopkeeper slumps over her counter counting pennies. She never looked up as I exited up to the second floor, which held clothing all made for women—mostly mink coats and stoles. There were rows of dead animal pelts. I felt an allergy coming on so I left for the top floor. On the third floor, I find myself in a room with scowling nurses and severely handicapped children. It was an infirmary of some kind. With a clipboard as a shield, the nurse told me I did not belong. It is a sad place. Wild-eyed child confined to a bed as many more I heard moan. The nurse told me to go wait in the basement.
I find the basement, dank and small, lit by a single incandescent light. The concrete floor slanted to a drain in one corner. A wobbly table with a stool was the only furnishing. A hole in the wall like a mail slot announced pizza and beer. Both were produced and I ate in solitary silence—cold pizza and warm and tasteless beer. I left the only light I found.
I spent time walking the darkness, met people where I spent time, time enough just to leave again. I felt kisses of lovers and laughter of children as the night progressed. I felt the harsh fists of new and old adversaries. I heard urgent calls for me to hurry as heels clipped the sidewalks. I felt slender arms wrapped around my body in dripping heat of the night.
I hurried with a lost child through a city made of Legos all painted black. A woman dressed in a white veil ran to claim him—tearfully like an angel, or a ghost floating pale in the dark.
I found myself alone again, walking on a boulevard wide and clean. I catch a fragrance of the ocean in the pale light of the dawn. It is lined with eucalyptus and swaying palms. There is no sign of life. I am in some coastal town. The cool breeze off the ocean caresses my face, erasing all the kisses and the fists of the night.
Almost without a sound, a sports car came to a stop beside me—the first and only vehicle of the night. Behind a heavily tinted window a woman’s voice told me to get in. It was almost just as dark as the night inside the car. I studied her fair profile as she said, “We are late.” We rode to where we could drive no further. A green manicured lawn, maybe a golf course, maybe a cemetery lay before us. We left the car as I followed her toward the sound of crashing surf. We descended flights of rocky stairs down into a moist grotto. There I see a single table set for two, with a candle that was now a mass of wax.
“We are late for dinner,” she said as I fumbled with her chair. The ocean’s misty breeze seeps through me. I have seen her in other dreams.
(This is an edited version of a dream I dreamt in the last century. It is a journey of one dream night, a single night that actually took 16 years in real time. Connecting like film reels, sometimes taking months in between, sometimes weeks or days. Once even a couple of years between dreams.)
Shonto will be the featured artist at the West of the Moon Gallery, 14 N. San Francisco, in downtown Flagstaff during the upcoming First Friday ArtWalk on July 3 with Tony Norris who will spin his musical yarn throughout the evening. His work will run through the month of July.
