Sailin' Shoes

Introduction

One of the earliest pieces I wrote for Vocal was this appreciation of the art of Martin Muller (Neon Park). I was originally going to try with "The Last Record Album" but then decided to go with "Sailin' Shoes". In the piece below I do describe the picture in detail, and his work always has so much going on in it.

The Story Of Sailin' Shoes

Drinkm drugs, weed and God knows what else. It had been some night. There were pills, and powders, needles andeveryone was getting more wrecked by the second.

It was meant to make you feel good, well it did make you feel but I wasn't sure what or how I felt, I didn't even know which way up the world was and the people I was with were starting to look and sound a lot less like humans and more like animals and things.

My mind was drifting and unravelling like a ball of wild twine, spinning of visions and colours likes sparks and fireworks. I don't know if I fell asleep or what but I woke, either to a strange real life, or in a dream then things really went mad.

I t was like I was wtching a scene on a twisted television but I was there too.

Something touched my hand, it was the head of a large wicker snail, as it slid past me on to the nuclear green lawn. One of the girls was on a swing on the tree kicking her legs, and one of her shoes went sailing through the air, except she was no longer a girl but a fully iced fruit cake,

I watched, unable to move, was I here or was in a dream, or was it someone else's dream. What have I done? What did everyone one do?

The shoe sailed on and hit me on the forehead, it was a heavy shoe, red like Dorothy's so my blood would not mess it up too much, but it hurt. I noticed a child or someone behind her (or beind the swinging cake) laughing at me and her, I don't know why.

Maybe they were a figment of my drug addled imagination, certainly the dragon in the tree and the colouring of the landscape were definitely unreal.

The wicker snail was away to the urn borden of this garden of madness, and the laughing child evaporated into a cloud of butterflies and the cake kept swinging and kicking though it only had one shoe on.

The dragon was now floating in the air, lights running along its scaly flanks eying the wicker snail as though it were a snack, its nostrils smoking but whether it was smoke or just the cold air I could not see.

The wicker snail disappeared through the urn border and the dragon hung, floated and smoked.

Then I was being shaken

"Mike, Mike wake up, you gotta hear this"

"What?" my head was pounding , the dream garden had gone and I was back in the party room and someone had put an album on.

"It's Sailin' Shoes by Little Feat"

Then I saw the cover. That was the swinging cake of my dream, and the wicker snail, and the dragon.

Had I seen this before I dropped into my drug fuelled dream?

Who knows, but everything on that album cover was in my dream and I was wondering if I was still in a dream or was I still awake.

I really don't have a clue.

Appendix

The Prompt

Write a story inspired by a work of art. Make the artwork your featured image and give credit to the artist in the caption.

You can read about the challenge fully here.