hangman.hangman

hangman.hangman, originally uploaded by Stephen Roy.

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E-mailed to me by Jeff Friesen:
Henry dreamed like this all the time. He understood very little of the real world and all its difficulties, however, he examined his dreams closely every morning and they seemed to him to be as real as the world in which he brushed his teeth. While the coffee shop across the street and the ambulance parked in his driveway were also real to him, they seemed like statues. Mundane concepts, cold and motionless which offered him no real understanding of the ambulance or the coffee shop. Ideas and the things attached to them seemed to Henry like the wind in a driving rain. Point to the rain and you have to shout to be heard above the roar of the wind. Of course Henry understood that ideas were useful, like a knife is useful to spread butter. “A pleasant feeling is granted the observer,” he thought, “like a child fitting a peg in the proper hole, the naming of things gives me a feeling of accomplishment.” A dream of the night before went something like this:“Naming and labeling can take all day,” said the tiger to the rose. “I know,” said the blossom to the rather large cat. “ I have a sandy bottom,” babbled the brook nearby grinning with pebbled teeth. “Dry up,” said the feline to the creek.At least in his dream state Henry's ideas were pure and free to interact as ideas, not clumsy and bloated fishing expeditions for “the truth”. Fried fish and hamburgers can be eaten with xylophone hands and Henry is very happy with his musical dinner even though it's only a dream. The past is even more terrifying. He opens old soup cans of mistrust and misdeeds and visits the killing fields of lovers undone and relives scenes played out once too often in the pursuit of “understanding”. These rancid rotting corpses can be brought to life as haunting, smiling zombies that have passports to the land of sleepless nights and wishful thinking....go by train and stay awake to catch all the sights.