A woman’s voice pierced through the scattered laughter and the mélange of music. The voice repeated the question and sounded closer as the minutes past. Raj and his group were around their campfire. Morning was approaching and it past the hour the group had agreed upon for their curfew. They were sipping warm beers and telling the tales of their day. They were a laid-back group and didn’t mind regrouping before the next experience, the next forgotten moment, the next sight you’d-have-to-see-to-believe. Out of their group, many of them had been attending Burning Man for only a few years, but the oldest of them who called himself Faeroe, had been losing his mind at the playa for over ten years. He kept recalling previous incidents that no one really cared about but kept asking him polite questions every once in a while to indulge him. Raj was staring into the embers thinking about everything and nothing at all while the two women sitting on either side leaned over him to gossip about another woman they had spent the day with. He had tuned them out, as well as the voice that kept repeating “has anyone seen this guy?”
“Oh my God!” Scarlet snorted and started choking on her beer. Raj looked up as all the heads turned to see what caused such an outburst from Scarlet. A little woman approached their camp, her short arm outstretched which at the end was a Polaroid. Scarlet was starting to laugh giddily and Raj sidekicked her in the shins and muttered for her to “shh” and to behave herself. Faeroe paused from the yarn he was weaving and addressed the woman in his slow, Matthew McConaughey ala Dazed and Confused drawl.
“Hey, little lady. What’s it that you're looking for?” Silent for a few seconds, she stomped over to him, arm outstretched the entire time. When she neared, she replied, “Have you seen this man? He has my things and I think he might have stolen them.” Feiro casually plucked the Polaroid from her had and took an interested look at it. “Naw,” he said, “Can’t say that I have. When did you last see him?” He passed the picture to the next person who passed it along. “I took off my backpack to get out the brownies and when I turned around, they were both gone. I can’t believe it! I thought this was a community!”
“Hey, man! It is a community and sometimes people in a community steal stuff and are jerks!” Scarlet snickered as she reached for the picture. She was sipping her beer and as she looked down it sprayed out of her mouth. She was gasping for air and was making half-formed sentences involving leprechauns and asking the skies about the location of gold. Raj grabbed the picture as she doubled over her knees in hysterics. The little woman stomped over to where they were sitting, chirring at Scarlet. “Well, er, how would you like it if all your things were gone? No one will help me around here. Unh, well, if see him, let me know.” She snatched the Polaroid from Raj’s hand and clomped off into the shadows.
“Did you see that her? Did you see that picture? It was like a match made in Dublin!” Scarlet said incredulously. “Why did she have a Polaroid? Those have been gone for years! She must have known him from before. Ha! That made my night. Now I can sleep happy!” Bemused, Raj thought for a moment to the last time he saw a Polaroid and agreed Scarlet had a point. His thought did not linger long. It had been a long couple of days and sleep overtook him as the coals replayed his recent memories.
The next morning, Raj was on ice duty. He stood in the long line waiting with an empty bucket for his turn for an overpriced bag of ice. His group didn’t bring many perishable in the way of food, but they didn’t want their supply of beer or beverages to boil in the desert heat, either. As he stood there, he thought of what it must have been like to be at Woodstock 40-years ago. His eyes stopped and gazed over when they reached the garbage. Both the black garbage bin and the blue recycling container were overflowing. Evian bottles lay next to Mountain Dew cans and wax paper wrappers fluttered with a threat to escape every time someone walked by. This was a long way from the 3 Days Peace & Music, he thought. Feeling some benevolent disdain for the trash, Raj made a mental note to not throw his broken toaster oven in the Dumpster when he returned to his New Jersey apartment. He was about to shuffle forward in the queue when the little woman from before dawn suddenly appeared in his peripheral vision. At the same moment, the man from the photo was on the other side of him.
“Booop,” he said in Raj’s ear. Raj was at a lost as to where to focus his attention or what to do. “Excuse me?” Raj asked, unsure if he had misunderstood.
“Booooooooooooooooooooooop booooooooooooooooooooop! I think she loves me!” Raj stood stunned still, even though there was room to move up in line. The man hopped, not unlike a caricature of a rabbit, hands curled underneath his chin to the person in front of Raj. “Boop?” he questioned. The person nervously laughed and the man seamlessly posed with an invisible mic, first holding it to his own mouth, then to his unsuspecting prey.
“Ask me 'what did I learn at Burning Man.'”
“What?”
“Ask me what I learned at Burning Man!” the bearded, bald-headed man asked, his naked-chest almost visibly growing redder underneath the rising sun.
“Uhh, what did you learn at Burning Man?” the person in front of Raj asked. It sounded like a question about a question.
Raj stared as the woman approached the man demanded that he hand over one of the backpacks slung across his arm. He booped at her in quiet tones and the woman fell silent. She nodded at him as he handed over one of the packs and stood waiting as he booped his way to the front of the line. Raj was close enough to the kiosk to hear the conversation.
“This booping ice melted! It is an injustice to sell water and claim it is ice,” the red-bearded man argued with the attendant behind the counter. The heat was making Raj woozy but it was only a few minutes before the attendant handed over a solid bag of frozen cubes without an exchange of currency. Ice was one of the few items everyone in the camp needed and would pay for. A refund on melted ice? Now he had seen it all. But then, Raj would be damned if the little woman didn’t run over to the man, clasped hands with him and they both paraded away, untwining momentarily to skip around a cluster of people, each dressed in individual colors of the rainbow. The person behind Raj leaned over his shoulder and said, “If there was one thing that I learned at Burning Man, it is not to be surprised at anything.”
Raj made his way back to his own group, hyperaware of the surrealism surrounding him. Every few steps, he looked down at the ground in order not to trip over his own feet. He saw a discarded yellow shirt imprinted with a banana, a CD cover with a dangerous looking mouse on it, and lonesome shoes. Looking up at the sky, the clouds shifted shapes to reveal meanings, only of which he forgot the next day.
(Inspiration was found here, here, here, and here. (And also from a recent text conversation between me and my friend.))
No comments:
Post a Comment