hoodoo voodoo
May. 30th, 2005 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sisalikDream:
I'm in a mountainous, cold place, wearing a black wool coat and a brown toque, and the thin gloves on my hands are made of cracked grey leather. I have a backpack I'm carrying around - or maybe it's a smaller sort of bag, I'm not sure - and inside that is a hand-drawn map, a cell phone, a bottle of water, a shiny silver plastic digital camera, and a small red object that works like a two-way radio.
I am climbing up this mountain (waking mind draws some parallel to the opening scenes of Silence of the Lambs, sans the ropes) because within the hour, a friend is going to take off from the airport this promontory overlooks. It is his first flight as a real pilot. A friend of his - a stereotypical grizzled, cynical war vet, old enough to have fathered us - has a superstition: this airport used to be a military base, and the only time people came back all right is if someone watched them leave from this same spot. The vet has drawn the map for me, although I don't know why he can't be there himself. I'd much rather be at the airport, to see the friend off, but this is an important superstition/tradition, so up the mountain I go.
When I get up there I use the little radio, and inform my friend that I'm in place. I ask how long it'll be before he flies out. He says it won't be long, but the computers and machinery used for navigation are organized in a stupid way and he's trying not to give into the temptation of re-wiring and -writing everything so that it makes sense before he goes. I point out there's no time, and I ask if the goofy short-sleeved dress shirt and tie are required. He says they are, I need to stop being silly, there's always time for a quick hack, and reminds me that I have a meeting afterwards. Right, I say, I haven't forgotten - now which plane is yours, and do I get some of those plastic flight pins y'all hand out to the kids?
I hear some static on the radio - some kind of noise picking up from the voices going from cockpit to control tower. They sound confused: they are aware of the radio channels being in use, but can't figure out what we're saying. Friend tells me which plane it is, then ducks out of the conversation so we won't be found out. I click the thing off, look at it. We can't have them listening to us; this is too useful.
The dream shifts and I am in past tense, seeing a memory of mine: I climbed up the same mountain earlier in the year (in a warm season which wasn't very) with this friend and his war buddy. They brought me to a tree-ringed field of short, dry grass. There was a hand-painted sign, a board with two posts, that proudly proclaimed HOODOO VOODOO in the sort of flowery, ungainly cursive often seen at church-sponsored potlucks and community garage sales. There were folding chairs, metal painted to look like wood, with vinyl padded seats arranged in rows along one side of the clearing. There was a massive crowd of people in all types of bizarre dress, amicably chatting with each other, telling stories, laughing. Heading the group was a man channeling Baron Samedi via Neil Gaiman; he had a cigar clenched gangster-style in his jaw and sported a battered black satin top hat at a jaunty angle. He was bare-chested under a threadbare formal jacket, and his skin was dark and shiny.
I looked at the sign and asked if it had anything to do with the Guthrie song. The war vet said yes, and explained it was some kind of code recognition for this group which has been around for a few hundred years, caught plenty of hell, and worked some interesting.. voodoo. It was like a pidgin-English needlesticking version of the Masons, with all the behind-the-scenes power implied. I was told of various events that these people had caused by their talents, and invited to be a part of it. I accepted. Once in, of course, one can never leave. I'm not sure what would have happened to me if I had not agreed, but the cracked wooden altar with bloodstains on top gave me a good guess.
Back on the mountainside: I have left the clearing, for some reason. I now have a shotgun and I am trying to avoid being seen by people in a weird little yellow house, taller than it is wide, since I need to get around and across their yard before ducking back into the woods. They know that our group, whatever the fuck it is, has a fixation on this mountain and those who live there - who bought the land and built their houses knowing about all this history - are a bit... testy about it. I come close to being discovered, but I am rescued in time. The war vet guy reaches into my coat, grabs me by the scruff of my shirt and pulls me back into the trees. Now get up there, he's saying, this is your moment and you can't screw this up.
I find myself in the same place where I was before. The airport is hazy in the distance, a grey blight on a green landscape caused by exhaust fumes and petroleum. I am pulling other things from my bag, arranging objects on the ground, cutting something with a paring knife, tying knots. My bare hands are cold and clumsy. My breath fogs. The point here is for me to send the power up to our person who is safely stowed away in the cargo hold of the plane. If they get to their destination safely, the magic worked. It's a two-man job, not counting the person hidden in the cargo hold, and for this they needed outsiders, which is why the war-vet dude tapped my friend and then they pulled me in. Known members of this group aren't allowed to fly, or drive, or travel anywhere.
I have the small red radio switched on next to me, in silent stealthy listening mode, and I am listening as the plane takes off. If our stowaway is discovered, I will waste the magic, and if I do that it will be A Very Bad Thing. Everything goes according to plan, and I hurry to get ready. I am distracted with preparations - I do not look directly at the plane as it leaves the ground - and feel a bit of shame at that, since watching it lift off was part of what I was supposed to do. When the plane is a dot in the sky, I radio back to both the pilot friend and the ex-Army guy that everything is away and I did my part.
Army guy radios back: that was strong, I could feel it. We'll get something good out of this one. I tell him that I messed up, but he shrugs it off. That's okay, he says. He's a bit disappointed in me for failing the superstition, though. I was supposed to watch the guy go. Ah well, he says, switching the radio off as he meets me, and clapping me on the shoulder with a fake sense of consolation - you did everything else you were supposed to, so if they crash or something, everyone should survive. Implied in this: if something goes wrong, it's your fault, and we'll let everyone else know. You really won't like that.
High poker, low joker, ninety-nine-a-zero
Sidewalk, streetcar, dance a goofy dance
What do normal people dream about?
(Possible causes for this involve the following: watching Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil the previous night, having the news on while I slept, and the military planes that are always flying overhead)
I'm in a mountainous, cold place, wearing a black wool coat and a brown toque, and the thin gloves on my hands are made of cracked grey leather. I have a backpack I'm carrying around - or maybe it's a smaller sort of bag, I'm not sure - and inside that is a hand-drawn map, a cell phone, a bottle of water, a shiny silver plastic digital camera, and a small red object that works like a two-way radio.
I am climbing up this mountain (waking mind draws some parallel to the opening scenes of Silence of the Lambs, sans the ropes) because within the hour, a friend is going to take off from the airport this promontory overlooks. It is his first flight as a real pilot. A friend of his - a stereotypical grizzled, cynical war vet, old enough to have fathered us - has a superstition: this airport used to be a military base, and the only time people came back all right is if someone watched them leave from this same spot. The vet has drawn the map for me, although I don't know why he can't be there himself. I'd much rather be at the airport, to see the friend off, but this is an important superstition/tradition, so up the mountain I go.
When I get up there I use the little radio, and inform my friend that I'm in place. I ask how long it'll be before he flies out. He says it won't be long, but the computers and machinery used for navigation are organized in a stupid way and he's trying not to give into the temptation of re-wiring and -writing everything so that it makes sense before he goes. I point out there's no time, and I ask if the goofy short-sleeved dress shirt and tie are required. He says they are, I need to stop being silly, there's always time for a quick hack, and reminds me that I have a meeting afterwards. Right, I say, I haven't forgotten - now which plane is yours, and do I get some of those plastic flight pins y'all hand out to the kids?
I hear some static on the radio - some kind of noise picking up from the voices going from cockpit to control tower. They sound confused: they are aware of the radio channels being in use, but can't figure out what we're saying. Friend tells me which plane it is, then ducks out of the conversation so we won't be found out. I click the thing off, look at it. We can't have them listening to us; this is too useful.
The dream shifts and I am in past tense, seeing a memory of mine: I climbed up the same mountain earlier in the year (in a warm season which wasn't very) with this friend and his war buddy. They brought me to a tree-ringed field of short, dry grass. There was a hand-painted sign, a board with two posts, that proudly proclaimed HOODOO VOODOO in the sort of flowery, ungainly cursive often seen at church-sponsored potlucks and community garage sales. There were folding chairs, metal painted to look like wood, with vinyl padded seats arranged in rows along one side of the clearing. There was a massive crowd of people in all types of bizarre dress, amicably chatting with each other, telling stories, laughing. Heading the group was a man channeling Baron Samedi via Neil Gaiman; he had a cigar clenched gangster-style in his jaw and sported a battered black satin top hat at a jaunty angle. He was bare-chested under a threadbare formal jacket, and his skin was dark and shiny.
I looked at the sign and asked if it had anything to do with the Guthrie song. The war vet said yes, and explained it was some kind of code recognition for this group which has been around for a few hundred years, caught plenty of hell, and worked some interesting.. voodoo. It was like a pidgin-English needlesticking version of the Masons, with all the behind-the-scenes power implied. I was told of various events that these people had caused by their talents, and invited to be a part of it. I accepted. Once in, of course, one can never leave. I'm not sure what would have happened to me if I had not agreed, but the cracked wooden altar with bloodstains on top gave me a good guess.
Back on the mountainside: I have left the clearing, for some reason. I now have a shotgun and I am trying to avoid being seen by people in a weird little yellow house, taller than it is wide, since I need to get around and across their yard before ducking back into the woods. They know that our group, whatever the fuck it is, has a fixation on this mountain and those who live there - who bought the land and built their houses knowing about all this history - are a bit... testy about it. I come close to being discovered, but I am rescued in time. The war vet guy reaches into my coat, grabs me by the scruff of my shirt and pulls me back into the trees. Now get up there, he's saying, this is your moment and you can't screw this up.
I find myself in the same place where I was before. The airport is hazy in the distance, a grey blight on a green landscape caused by exhaust fumes and petroleum. I am pulling other things from my bag, arranging objects on the ground, cutting something with a paring knife, tying knots. My bare hands are cold and clumsy. My breath fogs. The point here is for me to send the power up to our person who is safely stowed away in the cargo hold of the plane. If they get to their destination safely, the magic worked. It's a two-man job, not counting the person hidden in the cargo hold, and for this they needed outsiders, which is why the war-vet dude tapped my friend and then they pulled me in. Known members of this group aren't allowed to fly, or drive, or travel anywhere.
I have the small red radio switched on next to me, in silent stealthy listening mode, and I am listening as the plane takes off. If our stowaway is discovered, I will waste the magic, and if I do that it will be A Very Bad Thing. Everything goes according to plan, and I hurry to get ready. I am distracted with preparations - I do not look directly at the plane as it leaves the ground - and feel a bit of shame at that, since watching it lift off was part of what I was supposed to do. When the plane is a dot in the sky, I radio back to both the pilot friend and the ex-Army guy that everything is away and I did my part.
Army guy radios back: that was strong, I could feel it. We'll get something good out of this one. I tell him that I messed up, but he shrugs it off. That's okay, he says. He's a bit disappointed in me for failing the superstition, though. I was supposed to watch the guy go. Ah well, he says, switching the radio off as he meets me, and clapping me on the shoulder with a fake sense of consolation - you did everything else you were supposed to, so if they crash or something, everyone should survive. Implied in this: if something goes wrong, it's your fault, and we'll let everyone else know. You really won't like that.
High poker, low joker, ninety-nine-a-zero
Sidewalk, streetcar, dance a goofy dance
What do normal people dream about?
(Possible causes for this involve the following: watching Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil the previous night, having the news on while I slept, and the military planes that are always flying overhead)
