Thursday, May 31, 2012

Down


http://spunkmeister12345.blogspot.com/


I dreamed but I didn't know what, or where, or who. I tried to remember but it was like someone was dreaming for me, like I was thrown into someone else's dream. My head was filled with thoughts I wasn’t sure were my own or I wanted to be my own. These aren’t my dreams.
America dreamed for me. The trees dreamed for me. The gators dreamed for me. The neighbors dreamed for me. Someone fifty states away dreamed for me and made them happen for me. I drove down lone roads, like I was the only one in the world, like I was thrown into some post-apocalyptic highway. I passed out in the glow of a neon light and woke up in the shadow of a tree. I slipped into the lake and washed myself clean of dreams that weren’t my own. A dog barked and gnashed its teeth through a fence and for a split second I saw clearly, purely, but then America sucked me back into its dream.
A giant neon arrow, red and yellow with flickering bulbs, jutted out like a knife aimed right at me. It stabbed and stabbed and stabbed like it desperately wanted to split my skull and fill it with its neon dreams and cast my bones in plastic. I didn’t know what to do but run down whatever dusty road that led to whatever dark forest that seemed remote enough to get lost in forever. A pitbull stared curiously through a fence with eyes black like a doll’s and I laughed at its dumb, innocent stare.
I’d been trained just as well as that pitbull but he stayed in his fenced in yard, his fenced in dream. He could jump over and out that fence if he wanted to, if only he knew, if he only tried. I found a train track and followed it. It’s hard to carve a path when you’re shackled to a track.  

1 comment:

  1. The title and picture single handedly scream “Southern Comfort,” if that was actually the title. However, the font style and colors used, combined with the photo in black and white, really convey the “discomfort” aspect of the blog. They make the reader feel that twinge of discomfort in knowing that this isn’t just all about a good time down south; there is more to it, maybe an air of uncertainty. The titles of the corresponding blog posts work well with entire blog theme, seeing as how they are characteristic elements of the south- muddy waters after a torrential downpour. In addition, the photographs also paint a perfect picture of the south; I could see these as actual locations of somewhere along the coast in Louisiana, maybe Georgia or Florida. In the post “Down,” I could see the author walking along this railroad track thinking these exact thoughts, running into a stray dog as such. The tracks are the long road described in the text. I read the part detailing the “stabbing” by the arrow as the author so deeply immersed in his own thoughts that he did not brushed up against a branch jutting right out in his path, but so detached from reality, it was exaggerated into an attack of swords. This created the feeling of discomfort upon which the entire blog is themed. The closing sentence is a little cliché, but I think it ties the content and message of the post together. At the same time, it also works to create the “discomfort” the author experiences with his current situation; no clue where life the path of life winds, stuck in the same place. The beginning of the post works to build this up, creating some discomfort from the start with the feeling that we may be thinking someone else’s thoughts. This is a discomforting thought if I have ever heard one.

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