Tuesday, September 20, 2022
“But what about the pictures in my head?”
Gus laughs so hard that he slaps the couch, shouting, “SMACK!” and throws his blanket onto the floor. He gets up from the sofa and heads for the kitchen but somehow leaves his legs across the sofa’s armrest. He shouts from the hallway, “You a…muse me by what you want to hear.”
I lie in bed while Gus chants over the running waters of his shower, reminiscing about the Spring tides over our communal fires and flares launching at every full moon up high. I ponder what his dreams entail. I wonder if his mind speaks in ways of divine direction. And if so, what were his illusions of choice—because he could’ve told me to fuck off.
The shower cuts off, and his singing continues. Gus leaves the bathroom and pokes his head through my doorway. “And just remember,” he says. “Your muse…it competes with no one.”
“But this is basketball.”
“It’s with ten people, right?”
“Yes. Five on five.”
“Then bringing your best game won’t be good enough,” he says. “You gotta muse into your beast. That’s where your ‘A’game is played. Can you picture that?”
♦
When falling asleep, images in my head appear individually, each emerging like a slideshow or roll of film. Sometimes, the images play out like a movie, whether I want them to or not. Long ago, I pictured Port Avanti, an ambiance built on the Atlantic Coast shorelines capped by rows of clustering skyscrapers. I pictured each skyscraper tickling the above gaping skies so our modern-day architects’ creations poke through the fog come autumn. I pictured his glowing sources of light probing further above our biosphere as each is set within Earth’s low orbit to radiate year-round. And by confusing future generations about what a real star is up there, beneath those lights and atop each building, I pictured colorful illuminations, strobing to attract TheDistrict’s advancement in technology.
But I couldn’t picture the people who’d come here for freedom after arriving upon the shores of contentment—the land of the future—through the airways of solvency—soon to understand that an elephant will actually eat the brown grass of sorrow. And I couldn’t have pictured the role I’d be playing in TheDistrict’s curriculum, where on my most critical days of learning, I’d pay just as much attention to the buttons missing on my teammate’s shirt.
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