2000-09-24

i am come down with a little bug. i like getting mildly sick. it forces me to sit and not think too hard. and then i discover the world of the rest of the people in the world, and i enjoy observing them and think (not too hard) about them. and i don't rock out as hard when i lip sync to songs. (and you don't talk so proud, and you don't walk so proud, anymore, and what for? ...) crooner singer for radiohead is singing paranoid android, and i never really liked their music, but sometimes i do. its just too epic, too much bullshit, and, ahh, shh, itsnot worth talking about. im alone this nite in the workplace. "work". if im not working, im not participating with the rest of the world in a sacrament that everyone is involved with . i'm a missing out or something. and now, a story:

once their was this group of students who were on the brink of maturity. they were brimming with excitement and life. (imagine bjork's i amthe hhhuuunnnnter.) they were on an island. in a bus. yes the bus was yellow because they were still in school, and the school had not payed for fancier buses.

The bus driver was the only administrator around. the only approval they needed. what's the word im thinking of the role of adults at junior high dances? i keep thinking of custodian, accustom, accordian. none of these are right.

and second in command below this one lone bus-driver instructor was a boy. he was the favorite of the driver's. i guess he deserved it. being the best and most astute. He usually had the best, most appropriate opinion about things, and what was to be done in stressful situations.

and what where they doing on this island? Surviving. it was a class trip. (i just read in a diary of this girl in high school in Portland oregon, how they have a field trip, and everyone has to bring their bike to school, and the class bikes to a park, or an underpass under a highway, a grassy knoll. isn't it wierd that the west coast is so easy and free? What do those kids do with their days? What if you don't have a bicycle. Do you get a low grade?)

and the bus driver in this story somehow disappeared.

So of course it was up the second in command, the boy favorite, to take the reins of the trip.

The path proved to be treachorous, just to drive the bus was difficult and daring beacause of the knots and dips, and scrawny curves with no elbows. Dust was kicked up.

The kids were starting to get nervous.

and they were also jealous, no doubt, that this boy -- who was really no better than them -- was given the responsibility and respect of the man. Something was overlooked. How could their lives be in the hands of this young boy, as inexperienced a peer as any of them? Though it was cool to have free reign and no authority hovering over them anymore, it just seemed a little disarming.

The boy was doing his best, driving that bus. They were clearly lost, however.

Sure, there was a destination. the other side of the island. But no one had ever seen it. no one had ever been there. Even the man wasn't sure if he had been there before, but he was gone now. There was a boat waiting at the port. to take them home. and food.

So what happened? next? well, needless to say, the bus overheated, or overturned. it was no good. they were all on their feet, traveling in a winding, scrawling path through the trees (slap-happy branches), ivy, and skittering animals. the brave boy was in the lead, leading them all. there was no dissent. there was no complaints. no fears expressed. the young group showed uncommon fortitude and restraint. This is not to say that they had faith in their leader. Nor is this to say that they believed they would live through this anymore. They were bonded, mortally held above whatever uncertainties lie waiting for them. And they were quiet.

In a dream, a few nights into the foray, the boy saw his old instructor. The adult, the man. But before he saw the man, he saw a snake. it wriggled close to him. it was camaflouged naturally to not appear in the grass. It was coming towards him. As soon as he knew that he was afraid, the snake inched a bit closer, and he realized that it was a puppet. Stitched together of multi-hued polyester fabric, and stuffed with white random fluff. It was controlled by the teacher-man by assembly of sticks and strings barely visible. He stood up from behind a bush where he was hiding.

Relief mixed with curiousity. What was he up to? I guess we'll be OK. " thought the boy.

Sure you will." (people don't open their mouths in dreams when they speak, but you hear them anyway) It was the man's non mouthed responce. Here, look" . the man presented the boy with a gameboard, filled in certain holes with multicolored peices. It was a map of the island, of all of the routes that they had taken up until now. Studying the board, the boy was able to see where he had marched the group in circles, where at one point they were less than a half hour from the sanctity of the port, but had made a hard left and missed it. It was much clearer now, in the head of the young brave boy. He could do it!

What?