No Word Today

In my dream, a family of familiar faces welcomed me and Adrienne into their vacation home and urged us to watch their children perform a well-rehearsed song on the patio. They each had their own instruments, their own lines, their own tunes. They played happily and patiently; we enjoyed the show. And when they finished, the slightly overweight parents clapped proudly, the kids smiled briefly and then left the makeshift stage intent on dinner. The father watched his children scatter with a contentment assigned only to parents and then turned to me, and with genuine honesty, asked me to sing a song. He asked me this as though people are asked to sing songs all the time, in the same way a stranger at a bus stop might ask for directions.

I, however, was startled and taken aback. I'd been watching something without pretense and suddenly, unexpectedly flung backward into a state of self-consciousness. Although by no means an offensive question, its asking sent my brain spinning. Not a single string of phrases emerged, song or otherwise, and as stood thinking my body seemed to sink. I wanted to sing--desperately--and I wanted to sing something I knew and loved and wanted to hear. The silence strengthened as I tried to think of a song I knew to sing. Beats passed and pressure mounted--the father questioned me with his eyes, saying, I think, "Is there something wrong? Just sing, Zachary," and my mouth barely moved and no song came out. No singing.

That's me, I assume, in metaphor. Standing, lit, on a makeshift stage, wanting to sing but with no song. Stuck, gripped by the wanting. Elective suffocation.

Mr I'm On Fire Mr

mackle (MAK-uhl) noun

A blur, as from a double impression in printing.

verb tr., intr.

To blur.

Yesterday I bombed an audition with the vigor and relentless nature of a full-scale air raid, an unwitting kamikaze pilot with a jammed seatbelt and eyelids taped to my forehead. My radio sure as hell didn't work and my guns were out way past relevancy. Maybe someone hit my wing; I don't remember. Either way, I miffed. Missed the targets and dove to the ground in a crash. I said twenty-eight words, stammered, and miffed. Then, politely, almost robotically, like a true trained asshole, I asked to try again, for dear Sarge to just let me fly one more time to prove myself, to redeem myself. Yeah, I can do it now, Sarge, much better than the last time. All that was a fluke. I promise. Just watch, you'll forget all about the last thing.

And then I miffed again. Worse this time mostly because the stakes were higher. Mostly because I knew, somehow, that I was going to miff the whole time, but I watched myself do it anyway. Kind of sick, really. But all pilots are, I suppose. So this time, conscious as ever, I managed to eject myself, to pull the last trigger of self-preservation and fling myself right out of the condemned hot seat and into the lonely, unassuming airways.

Outside of being outlawed from ever flying again (in this war, at least), the hardest part about the whole experience is how, in a weird kind of way, I don't think I packed a parachute in that plane. Sure, I ejected myself. That hardened machine tossed me just like I asked--it's final task of execution--and my body spun out carelessly like in dreams that mean you need to find control. But my mind, man, I don't think I had a cord to pull for that. All I had left to hold onto was me and my own scratched shoulders. Falling. Just falling and falling. With no sound that anyone else can hear. Falling down to Earth.