OLIVER'S ILLUMINATIONS

A Child's Guide To American Empire

Written and Illustrated

by

Rick Hill

2010

copyright

PART ONE 

 

1.
   I dreamed I was at the edge of the sea. Heavy clouds shut out the sun and tossed a few showers in the distance. I walked toward a group of people standing at the end of a pier looking into the water below. I moved through the crowd of men and women, young and old. There was no railing. I balanced nervously with the shifting crowd and looked down. Women rolled in the water. Their glassy eyes stared deep into mine as their serpentine hair waved around their faces. There was a bad taste in my mouth. I turned away and walked back. When I cleared the crowd, cries of alarm stopped me in my tracks. Dark forms rose out of the water. The people rushed at me. I saw a large brick building on a hill and ran for it. I pounded on the door and bolted past the woman who opened it. I ran through rooms full of people, dining rooms, cocktail parties, boardrooms, dinner parties, saunas. I bolted up a grand stairway and into an empty bedroom with a window that looked onto a balcony. As I lifted the window, the screams of the dying echoed in the rooms below.   I awoke to the sound of rotten fruit falling on the floor. My eyes snapped open. The screech of an angry wasp’s nest made me sit straight up. I stumbled out of bed to the drunken moans around a piano bar after midnight. I wandered toward them in the darkness full of curiosity and fear. They grasped at me. They grabbed hold of me.

2.
    I shuffled out of the bedroom. My legs seemed unsteady, my balance tricky. I moved awkwardly through a dark hallway hung with dim landscapes and gloomy portraits and into another room. The furniture seemed huge. The chairs and tables dwarfed me. My feet caught on the rug. I glanced down at them. They were tiny, like the feet of a child. My limbs and fingers were small and pudgy. I was wearing some sort of overalls.

   The moaning danced around me in the darkness like bats. It wavered in volume and tone like a radio searching for a signal. I had to turn on a light. I peered into the shadows looking for a lamp. There was nothing. I searched the walls looking for a switch. Then something caught my eye. I could just make out a light switch high above me. The ruckus dimmed and swelled. Its source seemed to move in the darkness, now in a corner, now next to me, now trailing away. I clambered onto a chair. My legs swung in the air. A chill went up my spine as imaginary hands reached out and grabbed at me. I pulled myself up on the cushion and balanced on an arm.    

   The moans rushed toward me. I reached for the light again. They doubled in volume. My arms were covered with goose bumps. My fingers found the switch. One more stretch balancing on the arm on tiptoes and I had it. I heard it snap as I pushed it up. I collapsed into the chair. I was blinded as the room was flooded with light.

  

 3.

   When my eyes adjusted to the light, I shrunk back in the chair in terror. I searched the room in a panic looking for some place to hide.  A trio of macabre figures was dancing at the piano. A very large monkey wearing a red shirt perched on the piano and waved an empty cup. A cheap, blue tie was knotted around his long, stick like neck. His face was almost human and sickeningly familiar. His eyes rolled around madly, and his mouth opened and closed idiotically. He smiled the wide, open-mouthed smile of an empty mind. A balding, bespectacled thug in a stretched suit jerked his arms up and down in delirium. His feet pounded the ground in a vicious fury. The wild fire of lunacy burned in his eyes. They stared out into the room in a rage. His mouth was frozen in a demented smile. A tramp in a gold lame dress hiked up her legs slammed on the keys as a string of pearls undulated around her neck. She leered at the monkey and shook her breasts. Her eyes were dim, her expression flat as though she held a mask over the horror inside fighting to get out. The creatures jerked about so spasmodically and in such a mad, whirling rush I thought at first I had turned on a strobe light. They seemed to be singing but the unintelligible lyrics and the dissonant hammering on the piano was a cacophony. I could just make out the word "America" chanted over and over again. Whenever they opened their mouths to let loose some tuneless howl, jagged orange teeth flashed menacingly. They were so wrapped up in their hellish crooning that they didn't even notice the light at first.

4.
   I felt sick. I clamped my hands over my mouth. I stood speechless in the chair staring at this crappy animation hopping and jiggling, croaking and squeaking, twitching and stomping. The monkey bounced up and down in mindless ecstasy. He stared into the empty cup and turned it over and over. He leaned down to the tramp. He moved his quivering face next to hers. His thin lips puckered. The tramp's mouth exploded into a lascivious open-mouthed grin. Her tongue poured out over her teeth and flapped in the air. She bashed her fists on the keyboard again and again. She threw her arms over her head, lifted her legs in the air and wiggled all four limbs like snakes. A gurgling cackle crawled out from the depths of her soul. The thug spun in circles. His arms stretched out and flapped frantically like a fly caught in a spider's web. His broad ass swayed and bobbed. He threw his head back and bellowed at the ceiling.

   They mooed like lovesick cows. They screeched like a startled flock of crows. Then all at once they pressed their wobbly heads close together. They were no longer vomiting noise individually. They let loose a long, low growl. It was as deep and coarse as a Mongolian throat song and got lower and lower until they sounded like idling Harleys. The rumble went up my spine and into my brain where it boiled and belched until I could stand it no longer.
   “Stop it!”, I screamed. “Stop it right now!”

  

5.
   They were jolted out of their trance and the caterwauling came to a halt. The tramp's arched fingers were suspended over the piano keys. Her necklace stomped still. Her curdled yellow eyes narrowed. She snarled. The thug stopped in mid twirl, arms outstretched, fingers shaking. His thick neck pulled his head back up slowly like a crane righting an overturned bus. His empty eyes searched the room. The monkey put down his cup and stood up. His lips pulled back exposing his horrible teeth. His eyes uncrossed. His tail lifted straight in the air. A long, slow fart escaped his ass. The three of them turned and stared at me like rats in a kitchen. I felt very much afraid. I could smell their stale sweat. I could feel the sweat running down my face. The tramp let loose an angry hiss. The thug joined in with a low growl that sputtered and popped and shook his cheeks. A high-pitched whine beamed from the monkey.

   Then I got angry. How dare these assholes threaten me? I gathered my courage, pulled myself up, pointed towards the door and ordered them out.

 

6.
   That was a mistake. The creatures rushed forward in a mob, their legs clattering like a tarantula. They leapt on the back of the chair and looked down at me with ravenous grins on their faces. I tried to put on a strong front but my shoulders hunched and my knees weakened. My resolve bled out of me and shrank away. I began to shake.

   “Look at the pretty little boy, so pink and plump!”, wheezed the tramp. “Hello, little one. Would you like some candy?” The corners of her mouth were plugged with expanding and contracting webs of yellow saliva. Her hair seemed frozen, never moving as her head wagged like a signal at a railroad crossing. “I like you, little one. You’re so cute. Will you be my friend?”
   The stink of formaldehyde billowed from the thug’s mouth. His eyes squinted with delight behind the thick, greasy lenses of his glasses. His fat fingers clutched the chair. “Soft and round.”, he gurgled, his lips curling and flapping around his broken teeth. “Juicy and tender. I could pan fry him with a little lemon and butter. I could roast him slowly over hickory wood. I could pull off his arms and legs. I could twist off his head. I could -”
   “Pretty boy!”, the monkey chattered as he jittered and jerked. A string of drool slipped between his teeth, hung in the air swaying back and forth then dropped on my head. “Pretty boy! Pretty boy! Pretty boy!” His eyes crossed and focused over and over as his concentration ebbed and flowed. He slowly lowered his clammy face down to me. His skin boiled. Suddenly a filthy paw crowned with cracked, gray claws shot toward my face.

 

7.
   I woke up terrified. My eyes darted around the room. A sickly light peed through the window. I let out a yell and waved my arms. I jumped up from the couch and scared the hell out of Birdie who had been sleeping next to me. He shot straight up in the air and came close to hitting the ceiling. When he fluttered down and landed on the arm of the couch, there was a scowl on his face. I clutched the couch and stared straight ahead as the dream rolled around in my head. It had been more horrible than ever. Each time it got worse, more vivid, more real. I was dripping with sweat. The sweat turned cold. I grabbed my arms and shivered. The room came into focus. It was small and claustrophobic. The windows overlooking the city seemed blurred and cheap like scratched Plexiglas. It was as though the dream had infected reality. I ran my fingers through my hair, and they caught in it. My clothes stuck to me. I itched all over. My head pounded. I felt like I was going through some sort of withdrawal.

   Birdie was staring at me with wide eyes. “Come on back home. It was just a dream. You’re alright now.”, he said in a calm voice heavy with concern.
   Slowly the empty flatness of the sounds of nightmares began to fade. Their carnival ride images began to flicker out. My pounding heart calmed. I was breathing easier.