My iPod
by Roland Bastien
My iPod-
By Roland Bastien
She dressed a fashionable snug plastic cobalt blue robe on which, images around her reflected their pudgy pixels, a girl yesterday performed for invisible satellite cameras on Robson Street macadam. Her hair, red Bordeaux wine coloured her pale yellow face. Her purple lips, dark almond eyes, erected nipples, long thin legs, flashy shoes, draw a perfect Asian beauty. She rotated her hips and let her shoulders choreographed the dance. She gave me the impression she came from, a 60’s Vanity Fair cover magazine, by the way she behaved.
Usually on Robson Street one can see fancy gay men and young brides attired for the circumstance, sully the notion of wedlock while others and burglars ran into stores. We are familiar with queers in the West Coast; things are easy going. That girl left a glimpse of freedom on ordinary people mind. Some even stopped walking or driving to gaze at the special effect her look glittered. Others slued and skidded against the sidewalk. I lugged myself into that perception when I reached her paces and risked to ask her where she came from. When I approached her, a bubble gum shampoo aroma came from her hair creased my memory. She gazed at me without a word, rambling like a model and in a brief gesture; she displayed her ipod to my eyes. I took a close look at and saw my last night dream on a video. I gaped at this disbelief. She chuckled while ogled at me.
I saw myself in Venice, Italy with my girl friend Mei. She attired a fine beige silk wedding dress with a fine pink transparent veil covered her face. Her red fleshy lips pumped flame under the veil. I mused at them. Clock chimes. We stood at St Marco cathedral lobby, waiting for our wedding ceremony. My memory grooved so fast into my brain‘s cortex. I can even feel the moment, the way it was last night in my dream. That spurted out all my fears.
I do love Mei. No doubt about it. Getting married with her in Italy did not please me that much. If it was only my decision, I will ask her to get rid of her mother first before any consideration of married her. I cannot understand her mother. I fought hard to not outfit that funny Chinese man knitting that day. I am not Chinese I told her. I will not wear it. It was an idea of her mother she alleged. Taichi, your sister’s Japanese husband attired our man traditional wedding cloth, her mother hissed, why not Bob? She added. I won the battle and now I saw me in tuxedo.
Old Chinese women always bugged me. I do not like their attitude. They always gossiped and sullied on young people with many prejudices. Mei’s mother always played mah-jong when we visited her. Her living room always crowded with friends who are now retire. Some never worked all their lives. They drunk oolong tea all day long, smoked opium and played for money. I do not like seeing Mei playing for money at her place. It is illegal. I do not feel good about it. I am Christian not Taoist. By the way, she has a Taoist shrine beside her bed and she cultivates two times a day before screwing people. When she is not playing, she always gazed at me, scrutinized all my dialogues with Mei and ended with a suspicious silence. Some how, she mumbled to scare me. Mei mother drove me paranoia.
I wore two different pair of shoes for my wedding, one-foot sneaker and a clog in the other. I also had my beard unkempt, in the girl’s ipod. What is happening to my brain? My dead mother was so confused about the reason I called her from her tomb, to meet me at St Marco, when she was a devoted protestant. She refused to send me at St Louis De`Gonzage college, a catholic school, for a better educations, because of her protestant faith. Me and my brother and later my sister went to a small protestant school. They focused on Christian ethics and taught us how to behave as a real Christian. I was on the way to become pastor, not a laic professional. She gazed at Mei and murmured in my right ear, why did you choose this one? She forgot I always had an attraction for Asian people. As a kid, the next door girl was Chinese. I kissed her lips for the first time at age of ten and called her my girl friend even Feng, a very close friend of both of us said at that time it is not true; she was not my girl friend. They called me liar. I fought several times at school to prove she is mine. One day she let out a holler in the middle of the class when Feng came to talk to her. That settled people mind forever.
When I found out that someone had my dream recorded on her ipod, I became furious about her. Where did you find that? I hissed at her, knowing I did not really want to know the answer. She hollered with a scary tone of voice like a wicked girl.
“I retrieved it into your visual cortex last night.”
I cannot believe what I heard. I did not have a digital camera chip into my brain that can film my dreams at night, as far as I know. Even if I had one, my brain images will not be stored into anyone ipod. I will edit them myself and post them, if I want, on Utube or my facebook profile and people will follow me on twitter. More I think about it, more I realized I need a copyright for my dreams at night, as well as my brain’s data. Perry, my L.A’s friend had a copyright for his DNA code. He told me I should do that too for all my brain activities; we must be responsible about our own interest, he wrote on his blog. I started to notice on pads all my thoughts per day and posted them to my mailing address. I do find a way to keep track of envelops I have sent to my mailing address.
Last time I visited a psychiatrist for insomnia. He used cameras around electrodes planted on my head while I slept. He wanted to analyse my gestures and brain activities to find out the cause of my insomnia. It will be must more convenient to bring him my dream recorded on DVD. I started to believe we are into a weird virtual world. I must cinch on it.
I remember my grandma told me long ago, never contact stranger working on the sidewalk. They must be zombies that will hide into your secrets. I never believe that could be possible even, I acknowledged the zombies existence. We invented them in Haiti. They are not chip card for brains over there. They are real. What is that I am facing now? People walking in the street started to believe I am having trouble. They look at me as if I am the problem not the Chinese girl. Men standing along the side walk from Howe to the Vancouver Library, lighting candles to bow her like their Deity, while women questioned my attitude. One said to me, go back to Africa. It is strange; suddenly that Chinese girl got all the people attention and on her feet, without doing anything special.
The traffic got dense. Cars swelled and moved slowly. They buckled and blocked the entire street. The light circulations crashed down. Men wheezed and wiggled while running. A police deeply sighed set over his vehicle’s top. Car’s wheels slewed against the sidewalk. Dogs flocked – a fiercely competitive bunch.
People used their cell phone videos to record the event. Some already posted it on their facebook and twitter. Medias are already aware of that and are on their way to Robson Street. Miffed Paparazzi rushed for their scoops. I found myself woozy and far away from her, that made me squirm. I never heard so much concrete sounds that swelled so fast. It radically burst. Pierre Schaefer and Varese will be shamed by that. Leas of sounds from autumn leaves on people feet, cameras clicks, multi languages sounds to cars motors, gave us to read a patch work we never heard before. I decided to run and reach her again before media arrived. I pushed people like a football payer, crammed my body into the hive and asked her to show me again the video. She said wait a minute. She looped Mei‘s expressions into twenty four frames and gave me the ipod to watch.
I realized why I did not want to marry her. Her eyes focused on her mother. She seems to control her brain and all her life. I saw a Chinese man beside her, attired a tuxedo too. Her mother smiled at me, question to keep things light while something else going on. I was anxious. I felt being in the process to marry her into her daughter body. I will hear her voice and see Mei face, make love to Mei and feel her crappy emotions. Yamada’s novel “I haven’t dreamed of flying for a while” had a story of an 80 years old woman who getting younger and younger each hour. She had an affair with a 30-year’s married man who stood stable in his age. He made love to her with passion when she reached her twenty, knowing she was an old woman 10 hours ago.
Mei mother started smiling at me again. I freaked out again. She is not beautiful at 65 years old. She had crocked teeth that kept her lips unclosed. We can read a thin red line within her half-open lips. She is loosing hairs. Apparently, she has a girl’s body shape but a rappelled face. Her voice will stay that scary tenor pitch with a texture from smoking and alcohol. The plot here has nothing like Yamada’s novel. Usually, the main character has all the attention until he/or she hits the pick and slowly lost power and become the super hero at the end. This time Mei, she, or I will stay the same into an ipod without any possible change.
“I need to talk to you, I hissed to the girl. Can we have a coffee at the starbuck at the Vancouver Library?” I asked.
“I have no time for this? “ She mumbled. Again, people rushed to take pictures of her and pushed me again to the back roll. I repeated my football player technique again, this time with an aghast expression. I breathed faster and faster, inhaled the oxygen at the point my tongue got sour and heart randomly beaten. I slowed down a bit and went to seat on Vancouver gallery stairs, watching people rushing, cameras clicking and motors running. I heard a man said we would never know who she is. The crowd view is gorgeous from the corner of Robson and Granville, a woman alleged, talking to two other people. We must take a short way to reach her, another one said.
I cannot find a reason for all of this, when I questioned myself. She must have people dreams into her ipod. I was curious about how other people felt that event. I questioned a girl who seated beside of me on one stair. She said they told her the event is a part of a scenario for a film. Told her there is no camera around, except mobile cameras. She said I am wrong. They used satellite cameras to film her. The real scene is on Grandville Street. She drunk some water from an Evian bottle and joined the crowd.
I joined the crowd too and reached the Chinese girl again. I pulled up my cannon on my bag and took her picture. No images appeared. My digital camera had nothing wrong. I validated all the accessories. I took more pictures around; trees, houses and people on their go. Still no picture. She started her scary laugh again that spurted blood into my heart. She showed me again her ipod. All my photos logged there. I suddenly whimpered without any particular emotion. She started to trotter in a funny way and gave me the impression that was not in her original script.
Something must be wrong I guessed, but I cannot size it. Why such things happen to me? Do I am real or a Tran’s human character into an unsure plot? I decided to take my own picture. No images on the screen. She looked at her ipod, nothing there too. I jerked and woke up. I noticed I was in my bed sleeping.
Copyright ©: Roland Bastien
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The End
And that’s the End of the Poem
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