It's You I Want To Be
Southpaw Concerto For An Audi Sedan
Dream:
Me in my plaid jacket--the old one, that went with the yellow shirt that had tiny florettes at the neckline and the oversize jeans with holes in both knees (not because it was cool; they were simply worn through. New jeans? Right. You have me confused with the girls from Highland Prep. The ones with names that end in I: Tiffani, Bambi, and all their Barbie Friends.)
Me as teenager. With the security and armor of the jacket against the watery cold night of the city. The highway. All the cars move in slow motion, giants in the dark tide. It's raining, but the water doesn't touch me. It lands gently on the pavement, coming back in wingbeats, halos of splattering water dancing in the orange neon.
I should not be here. I know that implicitly. This is where They live, and I'm in for it bad if they catch me. But I had to come. Hell, look at it. It's so beautiful it makes my eyes hurt. Hang on. Are those tears?
Does it matter?
I'm playing chicken with the cars--all gleaming, all dark, water peeling away from them as they swoop down the lanes. Impossibly slow, unbelievably fast, and I'm dancing between them. Around them. Through them. I touch the bumper of one with my right foot, hop up onto the roof, and slide down the back.
Now that was cool. I wonder if I could do it on purpose.
There's one car moving faster than the rest, in unchanged time, a blur of metal and an angry hot whicker of engine-sound. That'll be the one. I ought to catch that one. Delighted fear raises the hair on my arms--I always did love a dare.
Now I'm running, and my clothes are wet and heavy. The closer I get, the faster time is, closer to normal. It's as if this were the only part of the world moving in step with reality. My lungs burn in my chest, seared by oxygen, ancient internal scars with an old, bitter complaint.
I get alongside the car--that's the best I can hope for, the fastest I can go--and touch the handle of the rear door.
The car tears to the end of the lane, turns on a dime, and screeches to a halt, engine hissing, steam showing at the edges of the hood. It's a sleek, dark Audi sedan with heavily-tinted windows.
Time twitches liquidly, and there stands Agent Smith, trademark you're-all-scum sneer in exactly the right place behind his sunglasses.
"Far out," I say, gulping down air.
He raises an eyebrow, folds his arms, gun untouched at his side. I take a few steps forward. I always did love a dare.
"Other people..." I'm talking softly, moving slowly; Agents are enforcer programs, not predators, despite appearances. "You know all those geeks that want to be just like him--no, that want to be Neo?"
A twitch-curl of the sneer, and the barest of nods. I'm close enough to watch the weave of his suit change color, darkening along the main lines of the weave as water touches them.
"Well, I want to be you."
This pronouncement is greeted with the smallest change of expressions--a sudden flash of teeth that could be a smile. Whiplash fast, my arms are jammed behind my head, his arm across my back, palms flat to my head as he flings me into the car. Christ, he's fast. And that fucking hurt.
He slides in, naturally on the driver's side, and snaps his seatbelt with complete unconcern.
"The hell is wrong with you?" I mutter, rubbing the back of my neck before fastening my own belt.
He ignores the pronouncement, starts the car, and we're off down the freeway, in the ballet of rain and neon light and darkness, always the darkness--it's always night in the Matrix, now, and always raining, lightless and wet.
The silence stretches a bit. This is a nice car. Leather interior, scrupulously maintained, and no one's ever smoked in it, and the heater works, warm air purring softly out of the dark grilles. None of it's real, but it's still a hell of a ride. For a spider's parlor, it's not so bad.
He speaks, suddenly: "What you said. Was it true?"
"Basically," I say with a smile.
"Good," he says. "You'll need that, where we're going."
The freeway stretches off to somewhere infinite. There's something cold and weirdly wistful churning out of the stereo. Classical music, strings and the like, synced with perfectly sequenced, understated breaks. Techno lite with a sophisticated flair.
Not bad at all.
"Where are we going?" I ask.
"Back to the world," he says, and the sneer returns. "Neo decides what's real, now."
"Not anymore," I say. "Not now."
His smile is sudden and very grim.
"I had a feeling you'd say that." He indicates the glove box with a slight inclination of his head. "You'll find what you need in there."
A gun, sleek and gleaming, indeterminate calibre--an unreal thing possible only here in the dream world.
"Awesome," I say, and switch the safety off.
I always did love a dare.
NOTE: Yes, I really had this dream. I wrote it up like a story, but I actually imagined all these events, and those are the basic feelings that went with them.
