The Parade

“Ever been to a ghost town son? Most haven’t, they think that cities exist only for the living. They move around, on clogged roadways and in their cozy living rooms, and they can’t see it. They can’t see the things that are really there.

I can see them. Everywhere, the paths of all who have walked, back and forth, back and forth. Images blurred, the only way to see someone truly is too see their whole path before you, arched out and parabolic, a winding snake, over and over, every little act from birth to death. That’s the only way to see someone’s face, their true face, the one they have carved into the ground. It’s an open exposure of someone’s life, ghost-images, fleeting and haunting, everything fading into the next, all actions becoming one action. It’s so beautiful, spread about before you like that, winding into one immense space.

You have to learn to see it. I was forced too I guess, back in the petty-crime of my youth. Running from the police of Los Angeles, the only town that exists only in black and white, I ran into the desert. Panting, out of breath. Afraid. Shaking from withdrawals.

The desert was so bright, even in the winter, and the totality of its whiteness terrified me. So, so white. A blinding fading, like film stock burning away.

After wandering for a while, I came over a crest and saw it there. Sitting. Waiting. Silent in the valley. An abandoned town, probably left over from the gold-rush or some such business. As I moved towards it, thinking of shelter, the town shimmered in the heat, losing form. Changing. Undulating in the distance.

I entered and sat, sweat covered and panting, under the awning of a building near the town’s border. All was dust caked and the droplets of my sweat wove intricate patterns when they hit the sandy floor.

I was alone, totally alone, in a dead town. And at that moment, for reasons I still don’t understand, I began to see them.

Nothing first, then faint sounds came from the desert. A melody, discordant and broken, growing louder. Fiddles, a snare drum, maybe a flute. And as the sounds grew louder, the melody broke free from its chains. It rose beautiful, soaring now, but strangely mournful. And then I saw them.

They came out of the desert, ghosts and dust-djinns maybe, but it didn’t matter. I felt like I was in church. Near something holy but forbidden. The procession came onwards, a parade through the one-street town, marching and dancing, bringing the sand with them, playing a funeral dirge.

They were dressed as clowns and priests, jugglers and magicians, the whole wailing presence marching and needing to be seen. Maybe that is why the let me watch, to rescue them from their life of fossils and incunabula.

They passed by far too fast, but random images of them remained hanging in the air. As it they faded I saw one of them turn, and his robes were scarlet woven with lightning. He looked at me, his eyes burning with fierce joy, and from that moment onwards I have been able to see them whenever I want. After a moment, or it could have been ages, his look changed to one of satisfaction. Then he smiled, winked, and cart wheeled back into the center of the procession, all of them fading, flipping, and chanting, now singing songs of drinking and dance, as they faded back into the dust and wind.”