Well, we were in the car for a while, and I did my best to tune out and or in for the journey. At one point the note length changed—I was doing a relative half note breathing in and inserting an eighth note to go with the two quarter notes of the “o” sound. Did that for a while—but nothing really memorable happened that I can think of save this realization that I could also change the duration of the notes, and, possibly, tap into something that somebody wanted to say or tap into something that would feed directly into my mind’s eye. My songwriter person was present—and other unincorporated voices chimed in. Well, something comes along, doesn’t it, when you don’t know how you’ll fill in the time, and there you are, occupied again.
So now, here, in North Carolina, we had the background change, which was like changing the notes a little during a song, and this different background came in. Information was transferred—information that others stored here, or information that I stored here, and we were trying to keep up. I could hear my famous pot-smoker calling in—as if I had a message from him, or he was in the process of leaving a message. i’m dying his counterpart, my wine-drinking uncle said. i was thinking or talking about asymptoting photons so i tuned into my scotch uncle: I’m here. what was i trying to do, a while back—some one was yelling up the stairs at me, asking me if i wanted some pancakes, and i was like, “No,” although I was hearing me say okay in a funny, facetious voice. So: realization: the mind’s eye, often times, is like a dream; when we appear in a dream with someone else, we are the other. We are in transit, so to speak.
What was the significance of this? This person, me, is upstairs, out of sight, speaking through the corridor. then He, that would be the narrator of my dream, was at the bottom of the stairs and thinking: “he doesn’t want to be a part of this family—he thinks he’s better than us.” I guess maybe that’s what people would think of me: that’s ok, though, because i think i’m better than everybody, too. One of us must be wrong because we can’t both be better than each other, so, well, I didn’t want to think about it. As time passed I began to feel that Ursula was leading me on—that she would never accept my analysis of her—and my notion that we were meant to have an affair.
But i did my best to keep her on the line—or, at least, in touch. If she became the president then her voice would become increasingly powerful, and, as such, I’d be increasingly connected and influential when it came to the arts and telepathic communications. But if we were growing apart, and, i ask, what led to this? Or is it just “me” and, to flip things like you do in a dream, i had, at this point, piqued her interest, and, yes, possibilities existed? I don’t know; perhaps i can’t love someone that is good—perhaps I can only love bad people, people that would hurt me. I don’t know why it feels like we’re drifting apart—i didn’t think a little familiarity should make it impossible to love someone.
We’d all like, i think, for this book to end well—with a happy ending, that is; something that makes us yearn to be with the characters that, for us, must come to an end. But i wasn’t finished investigating telepathic communications. So we’d have to wait and see how this was pursued—would I stick with Ursula? I didn’t see why not, although i knew something would have to change. you’re going crazy this didn’t sound quite the same as Ursula, although i felt, somehow, that it was; but she was definitely gaslighting me—to what end, i don’t know. I’d skipped my usual coffee this morning—I’d had some seltzer water and two Dr. Peppers, three pieces of sausage and some waffles. I was feeling a little sluggish, too sluggish, perhaps, to do any math.
so the question was: would the food get digested and leave me back to my normal self? Would seltzer water be enough of a stimulant to wake me up? To make me sharp? i was in some kind of a trance—cutting off a jagged fingernail, etc. what was making me so sleepy? Was Ursula dumping her back? Or was I paying for allowing myself to associate with someone that was addicted to speed? You had to have mixed feelings for people some of the time, because, although they were exploiting themselves (and exploiting me in the process), they, in my case, had often made it possible for me to tune into the call—the one you hear when, as a child, you dream of greatness.
You can be what you want to be, son; there I am, then, talking to someone, calling them son—if, that is, this is like a dream, and our identities had switched. if not—if we were living in some semi-conscious state, then, well, i was hearing someone speak to me—the speed user and pot smoker, and, to keep things simple, I defined everything as such: This is not a dream. You are not me and I am not you. We are what we hear and see. We are ourselves. In that case, then, i might also imagine that it was me calling up the stairs, asking my scotch uncle if he wanted pancakes. And it was him, looking to the future—looking to me, saying: okay when, in fact, he hadn’t wanted any pancakes, and, most likely, he especially hadn’t wanted them from me—someone that shouted up the stairs using his full first name, minus the uncle part, in the best reproduction I could do of his mother’s voice, a woman, that, at times, could put you on edge.