strangeness

my grandmother has died, and they're having a memorial coffee at her house-- when I get there with my fanily, the place is packed with people I do not know, and my family members quickly disappear into the crowds. my grief lies heavy on me, and I don't have the emotional resources to make sense of this scene-- I wander around for a time, trying to do my best, but the shock of it all quickly undoes me: the people are all incredibly fancy and highbrow and important, and it becomes swiftly evident what an important person my grandmother was in the eyes of the world-- and the familiar, warm person I loved so dearly is nowhere evident-- except in small familiar knick-knacks that others are pawing and taking as mementoes-- I lose it at this point and start searching for my family to I can get the hell out-- they drove me here, and I feel utterly dependent on them for escape-- every room I enter has more mucky-mucks standing around talking about my grandmother in an urbane world context I don't recognize and generlly being very smart and cool and alien to me-- I begin to see my grandmother's possessions and life and accomplishments in a new light, but I'm in no shape to process it-- I just want my family to get me out of here-- I start calling out to them, "mooooo-ooooom... daaaaa-aaaaaad!!", quickly realizing how ineffectual these names are but keeping at it, growing desperate and plaintive. the cool people, fortunately are unflapped by my display and continue their conversations without a ripple-- I go on and on, calling, searching, unable to find my family, until the place starts to clear out and I realize the only possibility is that they have left without me. I collapse into a chair, utterly abandoned, and after a bit take notice of the bright shiny folk I've collapsed among-- they're young and cleverly dressed and effortlessly at ease and clearly successful and wealthy and bright-- a shining lot-- dusty me has fallen among them for better or worse. as they rise to move along, they offer me a ride, and with mixed mortification and relief I accept-- we board a dreadful concept vehicle with stadium seating and no safety whatsoever and proceed through town-- we're moving through the locales I grew up among, and I make some small comment about a change and then a heartbeat later do a double- and then triple-take and gape in utter shock as I realize how the place has been transformed-- there are now elaborate undulating glass constructions, hotel megaliths, with multistorey water features lining the road-- when I'm able to speack again, I exclaim, "my god! it's like las vegas!" my companions all nod and say, "yes" and "actually, I heard a statistic the other day that the businesses here see more activity than vegas"-- and a cool, unhurried, unamazed discussion ensues. I don't begin to know where I am.

I'm back in my grandmother's house for something, moving through those turned-strange rooms, when I run into some of the guests staying there-- namely angelina jolie and her daughter and other members of her entourage-- angelina glides into the room, stark naked and with perfectly astonishing globe breasts, smiles sweetly at me and says hello. my jaw must be on the persian carpet, but I stammer something out by way of a greeting. I can't take my eyes off her, so I see how warm and honest and utterly unselfconscious she is, watch her interacting with her little daughter and am infatuated and entranced-- suddenly leaving is the farthest thing from my mind-- I just want to stay and stay and watch and absorb her goodness and ease-- the only thing that remains somewhat disconcerting is those crazy unearthly perfect breasts.

landscapes

rowing around on a dark lake with piney edges and dark, ragged, sudden dropoffs-- I am a passenger, two other women at the oars, and they drive the boat into a black cave-- I want them to stop, but they go further into the blackness-- we can hear others up ahead in the darkness, which makes it "okay", but I am not okay-- especially when the air fills with bats or even smaller whirring things all around my head-- I am panicking-- and finally we go back out.

I'm flyinging high above the landscape with a plane-- but somehow I've ended up on the outside, clinging to pillowy soft pieces on the side, watching lakes and trees pass beneath, wondering if there's any way I might survive a fall-- I keep slipping into a drowse and literally slipping, and I have to catch myself and pull back up-- but then the copilot notices me clinging there and climbs out and helps me back inside the craft.

there's a big fight between college students at the edge of a precipice, a rough chasm dropping a mile down into a glittering lake that looks modest from the height but I know is enormous and deep-- they're battling with long poles over some point of honor, and they fall over the edge in droves and fall forever, still engaged in conflict, a whole crowd of youth and potential falling so far, plummeting and disappearing without a sound into the water beneath, the lake's gleaming surface folding cleanly over all the signs of struggle. someone erects a plaque.

there's a woman living out in the desert, burrowed into a sandy hillside-- the white earth walls are full of the tunnels and activity of small creatures, but she's unbothered by it-- they keep to themselves, she goes about her business-- until some hooligans show up, a black-clad gang of them, drawn to the place-- they're spirits reanimated or reshaped into borrowed bodies by some dark force. one of them, a young woman, comes back to her after they leave to show her, tell her. the last shot is of the woman gazing out her round embedded window into the view-- someone sees her from far, far away.