“You sir are guilty!” a loud voice echoed from high above me. So high that I had no idea if it was really real.
I looked toward the sky. Or up. There wasn’t a sky to see above. Yet, I knew I wasn’t inside anywhere. I wasn’t outside either.
The air had a pleasant feel to it. Almost wet, but kind of dry. There was a smoke there. Not cigarette smoke, because it didn’t taste like that. Instead it had no taste. Yet, it clung to you like cigarette smoke.
“Odd,” I thought to myself.
I wandered about a bit. There was a giant wooden thing in front of me. I call it a thing only because I couldn’t figure out what it was. And I only know it was wooden because I rapped on it with my fist.
“Thunk, thunk, thunk,” I hit my fist against it. Hoping that maybe doing so would allow me to figure out what the only thing no smoke was.
Nothing.
I looked up. This wooden “thing” was huge. It was skyscraper-esque. Just towering over me. No end in sight.
“Get busy, man. Get busy,” a voice from behind me spoke.
I turned my entire body around hoping to catch whoever it was in whatever kind of strange face he or she may be making. No one was there.
“Get busy, man. Get busy,” the voice repeated. From exactly the same place. Down a bit. I knelt down to see what was making this statement.
What I saw was kind of a shock. I was me. Twenty years older. Staring back at the me that I had been.
“This is odd,” I said out loud.
“Not really,” the older me’s voice said. “I’ve seen it all before. Except then, I was you.”
“Well, what exactly are you doing down there on the ground?” I asked, kind of impatiently, but holding back just a bit so as not to be rude.
“Yes, I remember now. I’m confused. Well, you’re confused about what the heck is going on,” the older me said.
“Well, no shit,” was all I could muster.
“Just be patient,” he, I, whatever, said. “It’ll all make sense in a few minutes.”
That jolted me a bit. I didn’t even know what time it was. Heck, I don’t have a watch. I’m certain I have no cell phone wherever I am. Quick check of the pockets reveals this to be true as all I have is -- a Mardi Gras doubloon, an empty Velcro wallet, a condom and a wad of 37 $2 bills.
“Funny thing about it me,” the older me’s voice said. “You’re going to need all of those things.”
“Is this some kind of dream?” I asked the older me. “I mean, this is straight out of Alice and Wonderland or something.”
“How the hell would you know that?” the voice retorted. “The only thing you know about Alice in Wonderland came from a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers video.”
Well, that’s the truth, I thought to myself. That and some Disney references.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Disney-smisney,” he yelled out.
I’m having a conversation with myself. Only he knows what I’m thinking because he already thought it out. Then said it all. Is there anyway out of this? I guess not. Because even if I change what he originally went through with me, it will instantly become what we went through.
“My head hurts,” the voice said in whiny 6 year old kid voice.
“What?” I replied.
“My head hurts.”
“Well, my mind hurts,” I snapped.
“Eh. Kid, you don’t know the half of it. Try living the next 20 years. Then get back to me.”
I felt like stomping on the head. Crushing it. But then, would I be crushing my own head? Christ. This is ridiculous.
Finally, something else happened. The wooden thing disappeared. Just vanished into thin air. One second it was there, casting quite an imposing shadow, the next it was gone. Kind of like youth. One day, you’re basking in it, next thing you know you’re old.
“That’s the kind of thinking that got you here in the first place,” the old me said.
For the first time I noticed the old me looked younger than the me me.
“Yep, kid, it’s true,” he said. “You’re only as old as you think you are.”
I looked back to where the wooden thing was. There was now a house. It was a house I knew very well. Hadn’t been there in a long time, but my memories kept it in my head. All the time.
“Set it on fire, kid,” the voice said.
“Why?”
“Because you need to. That’s why.”
“Did you?”
“That, my self, would be cheating.”
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