MARC LEVY

AN OPEN DREAM TO RESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES

I dreamed I was a perfect smile in a rainbow of fabulous babies.  Each fabulous baby had three shot guns and their heads were made of papier-mache.  When they spoke each baby fired a shot, then burped loud and far.  The burps and shots alternated between rapid and slow speed.  Each baby was fabulous because each resembled Liberace in perfect detail, from their rhinestone sequined diapers to their thick full hair, swept back like wire cables dipped in shiny hot tar.

Each rainbow baby spoke two hundred languages. Their bright pink mouths moved at the speed of light.  A chorus of smoke and fiery words filled the cloudless sky.  The babies were shooting and talking and burping straight up into the sun.  Thunder and lighting boomed and flashed.  The babies, illuminated by the lightening became silent and still.  None burped or shot or spoke a foreign word.  The teeth in my mouth became hollow.  They clanged like glass bells.

A tall man in a long wood boat waved as he passed under the rainbow bridge.  He spoke with a lisp and had magnificent jug ears.

“I’m from Cawfed, Tek-this,” he said.  “Ya’ll  thop your thooting so I can get thom thleep.”

In the dream a single file of naked women eating handfuls of Nilla Wafers marched forward and surrounded the babies.  The naked ladies marched and chewed and their dry contracting throats made a sound like wind through willows.  This went on for quite some time. 

Then one baby burped.  Then another and another until their magnificent unified roar made all the flowers in the world droop and the naked ladies dropped their wafers and stopped chewing and begged the babies to stop.

Three babies stopped but the rest continued and the women retreated, running backwards, single file, swinging their arms, wiggling their fingers, and clearing their throats like quacking ducks. The magnificent babies jumped up and down, higher and higher.  They grew long frizzy beards. They shaved them off.  Now each baby looked exactly like Steve McQueen.

A giant bald eagle swooped down and attacked the babies, who fought back, hitting the swift flying bird with big puffy bags of one, five, and ten dollar bills.  Afterwards, the babies emptied the bags of money over a cliff.  Millions of dollars fluttered like snowflakes as they melted into the sea. 

“Tthank you thow muth,” said the man from Texas.  “Thow very, very muth.”