On the Run

Today, I awoke from a dream - It was a revelation - Almost Patmosian, whatever that means - But that's evidently another story - It began with some standard bullshit fight with evil - In this case, an apparently all-powerful hooded and cloaked figure - We fled - Yes, we' - I was not alone - But there's no escape - You're on the tee, but there's nowhere to tee the ball up - You're trying to pack, but the chaos is too great - You can't remember where you parked the car - The birds come over, but the gun falls apart - The train is late, or it doesn't stop - Your hands are too big, the world is too small - You don't mean to plunge the knife under the waiter's ribs - But somehow, you do - You push on the footbrake as hard as you can - But the car keeps rolling slowly forwards onto the track - Or backwards over the cliff - Well, it wasn't one of those - It was the final showdown - The final confrontation between good and evil - He caught up the wraith - He was strong too strong to defeat in hand-to-hand - We tried everything - It all boiled down and expanded out and up - Into a sort of pilot wings video game over a circus site - Guy Laliberté gone mad - Canvas and people and towering smoke arches - and juggling capsules and catching knives - and teamwork and comrades - and it was complicated and exhausting - but we won the day - We stood, exhausted, but triumphant - Smiling at one another - Clasping forearms and hugging like bad Shakespearean actors - But then we looked up, and around - They were gathering anew above us - Darkening the sky - Hordes and hordes - Too many to count - Poised to attack - Overwhelming odds - Against we happy few - We band of brothers - We were prepared to die - Almost relieved to have given our all - When just out of sight, to my right, just beyond the periphery of my vision - Like a raging bonfire in a high wind,someone spoke - A voice, like Atticus Finch - BEGONE' - the fire forward oblique voice ordained - It brooked no rebuttal - the hordes dissolved - and all around the circus tents - open saloon cars full of bad guys milled around to make their escape - skidding in the mud - but there was nowhere to run - it was over - The voice had been there all along - Hidden in the stones in the rivers - Hidden in all the books - Hidden in plain sight - It was the voice - of reason