Gandharvas Gabriel by Jesse S. Mitchell

Gandharvas Gabriel
By: Jesse S. Mitchell
In my bright new wonderful marvelous future, I imagine myself high up in the sky, the blue blue liquid blue sky. I see myself flying, floating, aloft, breathing slowly, below me the air waves like crashing blue waves of some old salty sea, above me the purple black of twilight and space and cloudless clime of heaven and me between the two. Touching nothing, all alone. I imagine it that way because my legs hurt, all this concrete makes my legs hurt and feet swell. This bus makes my bones rattle and this vinyl seat makes my skin crawl. I imagine my future bright and comfortable. I watch the awful everything blend together and race in one big distorted mess coming through the dirty window and my eyes blink and my eyes flutter and make something beautiful out of nothing at all…I can see whatever I want to see anyway. The cars dance in front and behind. The bus stops everywhere for too long. The Earth is still moving, that much is for sure, but the revolution has definitely stopped. I can see my bright new wonderful great fabulous future high above coming down close to me….reach my hand out and grab it on the horizon, trapped inside this bleating bus ride, coughing, clattering, coming undone, karmic prison…I hit my head on the thick glass, crash, crash, watch the world unfold in traffic…in blending speeding traffic. In my future everything is right and all is held in mercy and love and beauty and joy, nothing like all this ugly ugly greed and lost things and misplaced memories, out of tune…one side and then another, set next to each other…one reality here and another very different one here…my future and yours, yes, one and the other. Sri Krishna, drive me between the two sides, between these two skies, two gods, and see who has the desire to fight with me.
The traffic light swings like a pendulum above the bus roof, barely visible through the front window. Stuck on red, time has all but stopped. The light drips down to the green lens slowly…drip drip drip. A thousand lives are lived in those waiting minutes. One hundred thousand thoughts composed and lost, forgotten before the bus slowly lurches forward. The wild sounds of a confused mosaic city life drowning the sounds met for human ears. My ears feel like bleeding. Bleeding red. My swollen feet throb and I can barely move my toes.
I am crawling about in this world. I am just crawling with all these other grasping shadows. Hold on. In my bright blue future, I am flying high above. Flying high above in between blue skies. Flying high above the hard concrete ground and sour feet and long overused legs bent and broken. I am happy, barely having thoughts, high above in the hardly breathing windless sky when the bus stops. When the bus stops at my stop I raise myself up and walk out the folded door. My hand on the little silver handles reflecting the sun. Little pin points of light dance and pop as the crowds move around me. My hands shake in the cold wind. The light makes me shudder, left out in the open, no shade to hide myself under, the hard evil karma of illumination. This is a land of strangers and dangers and sorrow and lights blazing right into my aching head. The awful price I pay is unbelievable. I can see right into the minds of these mad beasts and blood drinking red-soaked monsters. I open the door to the silver glass building…the cold irony…the building is made entirely of reflective glass…the wild irony…the mirrors reflecting back the hideous sights…always, reflecting…back and forth, back and forth…infinitely. Inside the place is an open cavern, lit by electric fire and haunted by half dead spirits. In a rush, I make my way to the closing metal door of the elevator. In my future, I will be all alone…far above all of this demonry, in the blue blue sky.