Inner Dragon

The vessel gained momentum. The heat was rising so she blasted the air. The rush of cool air helped to disguise the situation. Making it more comfortable. Batons, hands and fists banged the side as she sped on. Bottles clanking the ground as they were tossed from the window. Plink, plank, shatter a rhythm heard almost a tune to a beat it was so patterned and regular in time. Like the patter of rain on a car roof.

I was the only passenger or rather she was. I didn't know her. I couldn't remember who she was.

A tunnel vision caused by a zenosynic moment of realization. It was being amplified by the liquid cure I had been dosing myself with for the last couple of hours. The sweet smokey flavors lingered on my tongue as much as in the air. The perfume of the wine was crowding the space of the cars interior, so much so the air could intoxicate. My usual "sprezzatura" traded in for an unintentional "affectazione" turned "strega". The choker I had been wearing stringing a single ring hung from my grip resembling a talisman, "corno". Gripped in my fist along with the steering wheel, it dangled catching the shine from the streetlights, creating little starry diamonds on the seats and side paneling.

The Italians have a saying "In vino veritas", she had far surpassed proving this tonight, she surmised. Her stained sky-blue house dress no longer pleated, but wrinkled, crumpled, and stained. No Shoes.

This girl drove as if the vessel was trying to race every memory that was trying to catch up with her. As if the speed and amulet in her vice grip could save her. She had lost herself. Maybe left herself. The poor pitiful watcher of her happenstance. The non-active actress in her own life. The saying often continues "In aqua sanitas" meaning in water there is health. A sobering thought of bills, disappointment, the lies, the loss. Water drowned, there is no health in drowning.

She uncorked another bottle with her mouth and spit the cork towards the passenger seat.

"And who needs health with truth anyways", she scoffed, "the two aren't compatible". Her foot getting heavier on the acceleration.

The nebulous of reflected lights in combination with the fogged windows and drunken state gave way to oneirophrenia.

She was speeding through Tartarus now.

She wanted to look back, but ever since a child future was the refuge. Speeding forward the only way to catch air. Looking back, looking back was slowing, it was Tartaros drowning you in the pit of his gut. It was allowing yourself to be consumed and judged by all the demons that kept her from her future. Her deserved future.

"YEAH", she belligerently yelled out the window while tossing another bottle.

She didn't know who was driving or how she got here. She had entered this runaway train mid-afternoon at the entrance of Madonna-whore dichotomy. And now, NOW being forced to exit "Strega" and not 'Nona Strega'.

She heard something slam the car. She was jolted into her seat belt restraint. Slight pain permeated her chest. Her skin was chafed along her neck. Her oneirphrenia creeped in.

"Another demon trying to immobilize me".

"Trying to stop me”, she said insanely.

She picked up speed annoyed at the worlds attempt once again to keep her from the future. She was Thelma with no louis she thought.

He had yelled, "fanabla" during their squabble. His draconian iron fist dismissing her with one single Italian word. Then he was done. Done with her. Stomping heavy footed on the life she had tirelessly built with servitude to his every need. She had replied, "I can’t because I think we are already there, but maybe I'll find it, it might be a step up from here."

Her cargo on board was every beloved bottle he kept in his beautiful beloved wine cellar. She left him one. The cheap box wine he had made fun of her for at purchase. The box wine he called flavored water. She couldn't help but laugh. She bet he even settled on drinking it after she left. Each bitter sip hating her more. The smirk grew across her face until it was a full proud smile.

She saw the tail of headlights following her. That mimicked her every turn and track change. She imaged she was the head of a large dragon puppet used at the dragon dance and each car tailing her as the body. She snaked them across streets, highways, parks and empty lots.

Her fate was sealed. There was no stopping. The vessel had to keep moving forward or her future was done.

"This is all there ever was", she said solemnly to herself while taking a messy, sloppy, wet, dripping swig.

Just then out of the blur she made out a face of a little girl. She embodied sweetness, innocence, and naivety. The little girl looked like her. Almost exactly like her. The horror on her face was so grievous it snapped her back from the loathing reverie. The gravity of what she was doing hit her like a semi-truck. Disappointment in herself, her life, or rather her existence. Momentarily resting her head on the steering wheel to catch her breath and escape the suffocating drowning she was experiencing; she took some deep breaths until she was back.

I would meet the future and the past all at once. Make them meet, conjoining, at one glorious point. Forever speeding in both directions. I'd make the dragon fly, if the body followed the heads desire. With that she pressed the acceleration and winded the dragon up the mountain road preparing for its quantum leap of liberation.