I dream of my childhood home. All my friends are there, we are putting on a show. Our only audience is ourselves along with my mother and a thick-necked man in a sharp suit. They sit at a table scheming about business and mostly try to ignore us.
Our performance is mourning. We sing songs, act out scenes from futures that will never come and pasts that will never be repeated. The stories and songs are joyful and upbeat, making them all the more mournful. We are singing of a lost future, a coming storm, the inevitable doom. How wonderful it was to be anything at all and how wonderful it could have been. We are liberated through our songs, bound together in our celebration of unimaginable struggle.
We perform like children playing make-believe. There is a whimsical improvisation about the whole production. The music builds as the climax nears. We are crawling under the deck as we weave a story of revolutionaries infiltrating the adversary’s stronghold. A fortress with many perils, the seat of corruption, and the suicide cult who has already doomed the world.
We sneak in non-the-less.
The sharply dressed man leaves his meeting and, finally frustrated with our childish games, descends down to our stage into our world. He wears his tie like a noose. Coming to lecture us on getting serious, getting real jobs, finding real success (like he has done). We laugh and chide him for his ignorance of what’s really going on. We continue our play.
Deep within the enemy stronghold we ready ourselves for the final battle. Gathered under the deck we produce long knives. Above us is lion standing guard. The sharply dressed man arrives just as the signal to attack is given. We collapse the deck’s slats and into our mists falls the lion alert and fierce.
I am behind the beast and am able to reach under him and lift him upright standing tall in my embrace. My comrades pounce on the lion, his soft belly suddenly exposed. One drives a knife into his collar and pulls down to his groin. Our enemy, this majestic beast, spills open. Blood and gore explode forth.
We are baptized in crimson.
At this moment, as his suit is stained with our adversary’s gore, the well-built man comes to understand something. He, an individual, sees us as the collective. Sees our power through unity. We already know, have always known, and we cheer and rejoice. Yet nothing is solved. The world is not saved.
Yes, the avatar of all the oppression is defeated but we are still left with the consequences. Inevitable, a future still stolen. Yet we celebrate.
The curtains close, the actors bow, I am awake.
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