Man wakes up from video game into dream then wakes up and escapes mental hospital.
"was it two dogs or twin women resembling that girl from the swedish version of the girl with the dragon tattoo?" he thought as he awoke in another darkened room. This kept occurring. Every time a different room.
What was happening? He could vaguely remember what had just happened.. a long corridor, steps up on one side and two large dogs that resembled doberman pinchers and those dogs that saved lives and were as big as houses, with little barrels always neatly tucked under their chins. He had attacked the two dogs as they lurched at him. He remember walking into a new brightly lit room, after being in another room, where some action may have occured. To the next long room with the dogs.
"Those fucking dogs," He took the first dog out with the shelf. A book shelf on its head. Then began walking down one side of the corridor when the other dog came at him from behind. Big ass dog. Running at him.
His large hands saved him that time. As he grabbed it's neck and slung it around and dropped it right on the concrete. But the corridor kept going. He remembers still holding the dogs head in his hand as he banged it on the higher section of the floor to his right.
"More people too. One particular sketchy looking mother fucker. Smirked at me too just before he tried to grab me from behind as i walked by him. But i grabbed both his middle fingers as he pushed me.forward. towards a table. A doctor in a lab coat. machines around the table".
Awake now. In the darkened room. was that a dream or a fucking video game? What was this place that he woke up into? They looked similar but there was something a little different about each one of them.
Do you ever remember brushing your teeth in your dream? Does everyone's breath smell like shit in the dreamworld? Is Halitosis a problem that is overlooked? Is there a switch that turns on that place and lets go of this shitty one?
Vermont hadn't thought much about things lately, since lately everything was getting stranger and stranger.
Sitting in the laundromat is an interesting pastime. The chatter of children running. Women sharing softener secrets over folding. Men trying to keep everything in order.
The machine in front of me, sits like an impatient droid unit as i await a time continuum to open. The week's work and wear and tear piled into a metal basket that spins at speeds just below mach one point oh. What if laundromats where a way out. The answer right in front of everyone, buried in detergent and funk, hiding behind scratched surfaces. It wouldnt surprise me if this was true. With all the laundromats across the globe, just the right amount of power to scare the shit out of Cern. Send the science world into a that downward spiral.
the Wascomat, whirred silently. A soothing rhythm contained in the silent bumping back and forth between the it's compatriots in the laundry trenches. Broken cart wheels screech under the palm trees painted on the glass. The combination of the heat coming off the dryers and the spinning ceiling fans coming close to their time off the spindle, brings to the mind a reason why we do laundry. Not only to wash away the dirt. Wash away the past, rinse, repeat. Memories, murders, and midnight escapes cleansed of their sins. In the old days, clothes like criminals where hung out to dry. Lines zigzagging and ziplining across the windows of picturesque neighborhoods. In those immigrant filled alleyways, everyone's dirt was on display.
Matilda, who came from Nigeria with her four sons, ran the place like a battle station. Cept her soldiers were more absentminded, and more space than cadets. But all in all, everything ran smoothly. Families came in droves on weekends, single moms, absentee fathers with the kids that day. You can always tell who was married and who had a family by the amount of clothes they had brought in. Single people, even people in relationships always have a Small bag, or a basketful of dirty secrets that take one small machine, usually reserved for them, off in some discreet corner. Married people always either come as a team, and depending on the state of their relationship, have a shared big bag, or each carry the weight of their own personal soilings. The larger families are easier to dissect, only because usually one of the partners is regulated to take care of the laundry for the entire family unit. You can see how many kids, girls, boys, essentially minute details of people's lives in these moments. We can't hide who we are in a laundromat. Everything about us is shown. The fact that we wash clothes shows that we are clean in some sense, that we even care enough to wash what we have worn. But all the other things speak volumes about people. The colors in their wardrobe, the underwear. Ahh the secret edibles. The sanctity of a person's clothing empire.
The washing machines, a small city of windows, a favela of colors inside crudely constructed two story metal shacks. For a few hours everyone is part of a society of cleaners. Talking about cleaning and better ways to clean. What softener works best, and which is the best way to get the whitest whites. How to clean the sheets, how to clean the streets.
The wacomat stopped. But the light remained. the sun revealing, the place where the flux capacitor was stuck. "Is it finished?" Thought Vermont. He tugged at the hyper secured lock used to contain it's inhabitants. It wouldn't budge, but he tried a few more times. Nothing. The spin cycle never started. The clothes sat soiled, behind the glass, with every memory still ingrained. Every scent of scandal slowing cooking in the indian summer sun. "Shit." everything he own of this empire was inside this machine. Now, a bank vault of his possessions. A naked man he stood. The thought of living a groundhogs day with what he had on his back was a thought that never crossed the living room of his.mind. An accidental walk of shame for a week, until he could purchase a new wardrobe. He had to find Matilda. As usual in her pleasant demeanor, she strode across the ballroom(laundromats usually had high ceilings), in her red vest, and calm resolute. "what 'appened?" Knowing in her mind the few problems that occurred in her kingdom. The machine being stuck always a case for calling her. "i see its stuck," while she fidgeted with the catch and release handle of the impenetrable vault. Vermont stared at her, trying to analyze her thought process and solution gathering. she spoke some words to one of her sons, and he bought over a set of keys for every door and every house in the favela of fabric. Jumping over the top of the backs of the machines, he lifted up the large metal board that covered the drains and the backdoor plumbing to these otherwise simple looking contraptions. A click goes off. The light that held all in the tunnel for the salvation of vermont's clothing, turned off. Both he an Matilda went for the handle. Nothing. Locked. Damn.
"I'll be back in a moment," she whispered into Vermont's ear. Walking slowly back across the esplanade of people and mountains of fabric, linen, and socks. he waited patiently, always finding a way to entertain himself with his surroundings, little telenovellas, soap operas if i may.
With a screwdriver in hand, she bent down and went at a little screw that apparently opened all doors. That tiny screw that kept the world together, the perrenial thumb in the dam of Hoover's discontent. the master key, the long rope to the lost ark, the password to the akashic records.
Out it came and off went the front panel, revealing the truth, like the truth hidden behind the doors of every home. More dirt, more unclean secrets. A yellow button to the left of the Wacomat's door was the final step. Dorothy's lament, that first step towards Emerald city. Knowing, that a certain crewman hung in the forest. One less credit in the black screen. One less paycheck. One extra donut at the breakfast table.
"Ahh", said Matilda, as she pressed the button. Releasing the pressure of the situation. The captives saved. The POW's free. A sigh of relief overcame Vermont as well. She just saved him a trip to the store. A sojourn most would not undertake given the circumstances.
You see, clothing, in a way, defines where we are in the world, even where we are in our lives, who we think we are or who we think we aren't. The cut of a man's suit, can reveal nothing of the cut of his steak. But everyday clothes reveal our pursuits beyond the paycheck. Our everyday clothes reveal a little but about what we care about in the world, whether we think so or not. Wardrobes are not built in a day. They are collected and worn, dissected and stored, mixed and matched, put in drawers and hung in closets. The clothing caste system in every person's home has it's roots in society, government, and man's desire to control. There are the best clothes, which are always in circulation. Kept in sight at all times, and hung with pride. The less fortunate ones are pushed to the sides of the closet beyond the sight of the door opening. Some never to be seen again. Even worse is the shelf above the hanging spectacles. Up there, clothing goes to die, forgotten, like old photos, where they were worn with honor in a long forgotten past.. The drawers are only for certain things. Underwear, socks, t-shirts, and other undergarments. This is also a place where clothes are used to cover up anything which one wishes to hide. Everyone thinks that no one will look in their panty drawer. Why? Everyone has one, panty or underwear. So why not? And yet everyone still hides there love letters, dildos, and blackmail photos right next to the sex scented thongs, and lust filled lacy racy things, white underwear excluded from this conversation. I never understood white underwear. Why do that to yourself? If you are a kid, it's even worse, but as an adult? Who looks good in these? Our fathers. Maybe they feel like Spartacii when they roam their homes in their white super hero shorts. Maybe Droogs where tighty whiteys to the beach to keep the look going.
These are the only groups that should be wearing these types of undershorts. Babies, dads and droogs. Everyone else is excluded. Unless we are talking lacy, corset, or bra. On an island of their own. Which is fitting for such dainty garments. Light enough to hang from trees, frilly leaves, bearing fruits of imagination.
Eyes and music have the same power. In any room, eyes can glance a section or person, a cymbal can crash, strobelight bouncing off it's retinas. Rays pop as they peek over the rights of the citizens of the horizen. Curtains ride up as the world begins again. Burning new memories across the minds of its dreamers.
Children dressed in laughter, prepped for the cauldron. A single car in a distant memory of space. Weaving back and forth in a lake, a plastic ball just touching the surface, a fuzzy umbrella, a hazy melody.
Does the room move, or does the passageway? We are constantly moving from one to the other. One room, which is the main room. The others, a place to work, to move around, to meet, to fuck, to eat, to shit, to clean, to watch, to grow, to die. Perec's dilemma, the macrocosm of our mental madness. The cranium of a cooperative of our collected selves.
They stepped out into the hallway. A long winding, weaving, warping, distorted masonic floor. A fraction of Alice's forgiveness. A fractal of her descent.