I am at a beach location, clearly a busy tourist area, but it doesn't feel like Florida. I think I remember somebody saying Texas. I wouldn't know what that feels like since I've never been to a beach in Texas. But here I am; I've been here a while, combining work and leisure, because despite being here to work on a proposal, there just hasn't been much to do. Something is funky about the proposal; we all think it's moribund or unwinnable or both but until something definitive happens we are bound to work it.
Walter and Don both dropped acid some time ago. At some point I hear Walter talking to someone he's just met about having "committed suicide" last year. I consider the oddness of using that phrase to mean an unsuccessful attempt—but he certainly committed an act, whether it was completed or not, so I decide the usage is fine. Walter appears to have been saved by a natural display of beauty that convinced him to live instead of die. The display was a sort of "aurora oceanis", an orange or salmon-colored show of lights dancing above the shoreline, caused by krill (Walter doesn't use this word and I don't think of it at the time, but it's clear from the color) that are borne on a cycle of subterranean water currents (as if the ocean continues under the land) and expressed into the air through evaporation of water near the shore. This phenomenon (doo doooo de doo doo) is not happening right now, but I either remember or imagine it happening, over yonder on that beach. Right behind the mountain range.
Geology is not Brain's strong suit.
I am aware of a group of young folk nearby talking about having had to repair an old junker, er, classic car, twice—seemingly just today. I am in something like an all-purpose room—church hall?—or waiting room, just eavesdropping. I don't think it is the put-upon car owners but some other group (including Darrius from NOLA) who are talking reverently about a "The Wire"-like television show with a popular but unofficial surname after a main character, something like "The Travels of Bobby Burma Shave". It's not that, but neither is it "The Travels of Jimmy McNutty". Whatever the show is, I *love* it and, hearing others gushing, now I want to binge re-watch, availing myself of all ephemera. I tell myself I need to shop online for "definitive companion" books, compendia of trivia, criticism and analysis.
I see Don walking past, heading down a side-arcade in a retail complex, and I call his name. It is the first time I've caught up to him since he dosed early in the day. I have conflicting feelings about Don (who is not quite Don Gordon, my deeply ill-advised unrequited love from Newark in the '90s). Mostly I cannot help finding him beautiful as a complete package: pretty, hippified, WSYWIG, even-keeled, thoughtful, mindful. If there ever was an argument for the existence of the human soul, it was Don. (Spoiler: there's not.)
After checking each other's wellness, he tells me with a hint of embarrassment that he'd like to consult the local papers for places to live—it's his first visit here and he already wants to move here. He tells me he has had a really nice trip but doesn't attempt to describe it. "I'm glad you got a chance to drop today," I tell him. (I myself did not dose.) "It was a gorgeous day." Indeed, it still is, with the light just beginning to dim. I'm still thinking about those salmon-colored lights and I wonder if Don has ever seen them. It would be great to see them while peaking.
Don mentions he was with or peripheral to the folks who needed to get the car fixed (just one of the two times). Then he wonders aloud how Bill (the boss) feels about the current solicitation. Does he just want it to be canceled by the customer so everyone can stop working on a losing bid? Yeah, Bill totally does want cancellation, I tell Don as we stroll around a green beachfront dorm-style building. That's what we all want, I tell him. Cancellation.
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