Cavern

I saw a cluster of stage lights moving through one another. Each one with its own animal mask, its own tribal economy hanging over it. Philosophy is to geopolitics as geopolitics is to war. Yeah. I was just an actor in a scene, the other actors stuck in it like mud, the fringe of the theater seats was gold. Was this real, or was this fantasy? All my muscles were burning from exertion, spent like currency. More currency than a valley girl would spend at the mall. It felt real. Roaring gusts of wind whirled snow engulfing the access portal from which were periodically heard the words and clangs of forks and knives interspersed by hearty laughter. The government disperses currency with magic tricks. Uh huh. Foundations were the little aquifers. This cavern was previously used to house missile launch equipment. Discarded eskimo parkas lay by the glow of the entrance. I turned the corner and saw a skeleton with rotted meat hanging off the rib bones. Just like a pig, I thought. Pretty corny. Inside the ribcage I spotted a dried-up, decaying liver with intestines tied around it. Veins all sprouting like berries. Two moldy pennies. Got it. The voices got louder. I gasped as light rays dotted my face like swollen flowers. Just another hopeless innocent dreamer, I was. That's all I was--a silly dreamer, unable to bring his ideas to fruition, doomed to his slimy fantasies. Obsessed with people who actually mattered, who held sway in this world, trying to replicate their actions but unable to replicate their agency. The bones were as bright as the smile of a valley girl who bought every pair of luxury sunglasses in a mall made of chrome. The slope of the cavern was so steep, my footfalls cried out and the dust made me cough gravely. Crawling on the floor, I could see the Eskimo Collective seated at the dinner table decorated with scores of roses surrounded by thousands of shards of broken icicles out of the corner of my eye. I urged myself to push further. I only wished that they come closer. Like that kid at soccer practice who had to learn how to kick the ball, I shut my eyes, pushed, and rolled over. I saw a fuzzy parka in front of me, then a blowtorch, and warmth coursed through my bones.