Land of Nod

Shadow & Dream

You look like you just zapped your zeppelin, popped your pontoon, burst yer bubble - new here, na? Yop, thought so - you look every inch a dreamer, no doubting that one.

Choirboys say that We built this City on Rock & Roll, but don't you go believing that shit, this here is Nod, no matter what the bubbleboys & bubblegirls call it these days.

It was the Nephalim what built this place, halfway between Purgatory and Zanadu, don't forget the left turn at Babylon, East of Never and West of Wonder. Fleeing the Garden of Rules, they built a refuge out of Shadows and Dreams.

I see I lost you there, ok, let me get some finger paints and crayons; help you with some stick-figuring.

Imagine for a moment an ocean of soap bubbles - each one containing a dreamer and his dream universe. And when each dreamer wakes the bubble pops and the ejecta of dreams flies everywhere - raining down into an ocean of flop sweat and gloaming - until time and the psychic tide make islands of Shadow and Dreamstuff. It was here that Lilith and the Nephalim came when their dreams burned and drowned - and built Nod from the ashes and Godshit- the City of Shadows and Dreams.

Used to be a moon didn't go by without a dreamer dropping from the sky - all roads lead to Nod, but nary a one leads away- remember that son of Adam, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. Freaking choirboys got that bit right as rain, sure 'nuff.

Yep, used to be it was asses and elbows deep in dreamers in the day, but that was the age of miracles. These days it's mostly headcases - like you I bet.

You got the look - kiss any Cadillacs lately? Lick a Louisville slugger? Attempted to asphyxiate on asphalt? Get panned by a cast-iron bitch? Suckered by a sap? Someone mambo on yer melon?

Head trauma, most of you poppers - that's what does it. Hit yer melons so hard it knocks you out and then straight on through, till you pop out the otherside.

Welcome to the Darkside of the moon kid, the flipside, Shangri-la and Bedlam, the land of lost dreams and broken dreamers. And until they pull the plug on your vegetable patch - your new home. Don't get comfy. Chances are you'll be nightmare fodder by high tea unless you stick with me. Call me Puck, Fuck with me and you won't be regretting anything, ever again.

What Morpheus? King of Dreams? Been reading too many comic books. Oh he's a Lord here-bouts, but Kings don't last longer than a fart in a fanbelt round here, even if they used to be Gods. Funny how gods of Illusion always have delusions of grandeur, something to think about there. What - A lord? Hm, guess it just means he's an alpha-predator of the Theta state.

But, really, if it's not the Nightmares getting their hooks in ya, burrowing deep and laying their eggs - then it's the Langoliers - the void-mouths, eaters of nightmares and realities, the hunger at the end of the Universe. Don't blame us bubble-boy - all this shit is yours, you just fell down the crapper and landed in it.

We are the Music you made us

And we the embodiments of Dreams

Wanderings by lone dream breakers

And bathers in Alpha-Theta-Delta streams

Worlds lost and Dreams forsaken

Of whom the pale lunatic screams

Yes you are the movers and makers

And we but the shadows of Dreams

With endless cacophonous ditties

You build up Dream Worlds and cities

And out of every fantasy story

You fashion us in glamour and gory

Each man with a fantasy, each measure

Casts forth his wishes in this well

And every dross, ghost, glimmer and treasure

Finds it's end here in this Hell

You in seasons past counting

Fashioned Worlds ever mounting

Nineveh, Babel, Wonderland and Neverland

Faerie and Tempest, Heaven and Hell

For each Dream is a World undying

And Nod, where we come home to Berth,

And Birth anew every Night,

The sacred and profane becoming...

As Long as the Sun Shines, the Grass Grows, and the Shit Flows Downstream.