Somewhere Over Virginia

They said the flight from Atlanta was only supposed to take three hours. Just enough time to have a snooze before heading back in the office. I settle in and close my eyes. I overhear the man sitting next to me say to his wife, “When we get back to New York I’d like it if we could talk more about god and abstraction.” Soon I drift into dreamland. I find myself standing in an art gallery filled with tourists. Silver haired people with thick framed glasses are all mumbling and milling about, pointing at the work on the walls. I walk up to a large multi-color abstract painting and try to wrap my mind around its meaning. I take in the strange shapes and textures. I tilt my head and attempt to interpret the gestural forms spattered across the canvas. There is a moment where I think I understand, but instantly I am back to square one, searching for answers. Completely overwhelmed, I begin to panic - a concerned look crosses my face. I feel the pragmatic hemisphere of my brain begin to throb, then all of a sudden I hear it snap. Maybe it is the divine beauty of the work or simply the idea of abstraction itself, but I cannot handle any of it. My mind is melting into itself - I have now completely metabolized. The world opens up to me in bright flashes of molten light. I clearly see the rage that I cannot control. Floating above the whole scene and looking down, I see my physical myself, ape-like and trashing - tearing paintings from the walls while screaming to heaven on high. I am running in circles flailing my arms – howling at the patrons as they stare at me in total disbelief. It takes seven museum guards to pin me down. I think they inject me with something, but I really can’t be sure. In an instant I am sucked back into reality, just as the plane sets down at LaGuardia and the overhead chime pings out it's piercing call.