I stopped rowing my kayak and set
aside my paddles to watch the beautiful sunset–
you should’ve seen it:
vermillion descended from the heavens
and leisurely dulled into a beautiful brown
–as the hours lazily passed by, I laid down across my deck (eyes closed),
listening to crickets chirping, mosquitos dancing, and turtles swimming…
when (suddenly!) my feet felt a tug shudder across the hull;
I reached (blindly) for my paddles only to realize
they had disappeared, so
I jumped up to search through the river frantically…
i didn’t find my paddles and instead found a ten foot wide whirlpool, silently swallowing
the river whole – the current started ripping at the boat harder – and I couldn't even resist for a
second (no matter how hard I tried)
without notice, the kayak tilted downwards and a terror
took hold and paralyzed me: the hole appeared directly below
ready to tear my soul with its gnashing teeth
and then, the whirlpool swallowed me whole…
sinking helplessly to the seafloor:
the powerful gush of water attacked my ears, dull noises flooded my senses, but
too exhausted to filter them away,
I began to hear whispers through the murky indigo depths,
“the last thing you’ll see is rainbows”;
bubbles rose faster and I sank
deeper into the seabed, my entire body smothered in the sand –
but the sand was thin, because as my body passed through the seafloor,
I faced the sky (this time, a little less vermillion) once again
so I caressed my kayak once again
to realize, there was no boat; no, I was floating in the air –
and when I bent backwards, I saw the slick, black NYC skyline (damp neon lights and everything)
upside down – “oh shit, I’m about to fall” – and slowly dived down, head first, matter over mind…
spindling threads of colors (yellow and green) darted beneath my head –
and a human-shaped shadow appeared before me, falling with me,
“Hey, I can delay it. Just play ping pong with me”, but
before I could object, it said, “I know you can’t see it, but just beat me, one point,
curl your hands, and feel the breeze-ball”
what!? breeze-ball? “hey! focus! I know you’re confused. you gotta follow me.
that’s how you live”–
first the breeze streamed left, my hand left, then the breeze came right, hand right,
the shadow mirrored my movements, and it went breeze up, hand up, breeze down,
hand down (backchop), hand left, down, right, right, down, down, right, and
“SMASHHH!!!!! well played. now don’t look down”, well shit, I looked down
and saw a zoomed-in N.Y.C; for a second, I could read the “Newark Ave” sign –
and watched the hundreds of Indians walking by – and as I gazed across the street,
i saw a clothesline below, hanging white shirts, black jeans, and soaked socks,
waving in the breeze –
“let’s go there, through the dangling white shirts” and the shadow guided
me in an arc through the burning smog and into a white shirt,
“hey, I guess this is goodbye…” and for the first time, I witnessed the shadow smile –
…
I stumbled onto the beach, barefoot, with the purple night sky lighted by a gentle full moon –
I could make out the craters, the sea of tranquility, the tiny meandering footprints –
and like a timelapse, the stars spun around it…
slowly, waves seeped through the sand, and bubbles rose from the inundated beach –
as the moon shone its light on the bubbles, I could hear small, metallic chimes
and on the surface of these bubbles was the moon’s
million different colors, in a dancing spectrum of frenzied colors
and as tiny bubbles streamed down my face,
the moon, the night sky, the billion tiny bubbles (with their moons and night skies)
blurred into a beautiful brown,
with my nose, my eyes, and my mouth.