The Golden Ticket
"My dreams, hemolyzed under microscopes, are unable to be processed."
A series of elongated rectangles…
To be unknown, rejected from point of birth, from residence, from community, from identity… It’s set up to reject over and over maybe in the hope that THIS time, the boulder will crush my breath into a silhouette on the bottom of the hill. Maybe in the deflation, the synapses won’t have oxygen to fire another resurrection of cells stacking into enough momentum. Or maybe it’s the low CO2 in my blood that my prayers and intentions faulter to- the transmissions too rapidly exiting before being exposed to the world around. My dreams, hemolyzed under microscopes, are unable to be processed.
Processed. “Your request is unable to be processed. Please call…” inside of business hours; inside of queues that transfer to disconnects. “Voicemail is full.” “Due to longer wait times…” “Please call back”. I call, then they don’t. Maybe if I go in person… and the appointment is scheduled.
It’s worse than the TSA; bags and bottles are strewn around the floor of the Pearly Gates. “Here’s your number.” Peter tells me they have to take my cane for inspection. I flash a compliant smile. Yep, sure, I can walk the distance.
Appointments; numbers; this deli counter thumbed piece of Golden Ticket. My scheduled time expires waiting for me to yell out “BINGO!!!” when my fate is finally drawn upon the screens around where we wait. The destination is yet to be determined until we are called to the ticket masters that line the waiting room with plexiglass enclosures. An automated voice booms overhead, chiming off the next departures and last calls. Under my over-the-glasses sunglasses and woven paper hat purchased to fend from the sun on walls of Old City Dubrovnik, I make myself small under the larger awareness of my business-class mystique. I can shield here in the shade, away from the attempts to lock onto my eyes that ask me just what the hell do I think I’m doing sitting here with them? What is this specter enshrouded in vanta? This apparition of myself is the one not interested in chatty seat-neighbors. I pretend that the earbuds are cranking out a sick beat as his mouth moves to satiate his need for eye contact. I don’t look over.
This song, this shore, they are not for you to seek and crash upon, good sir. Keep moving.
Gratefully, he kept walking and I gratefully thanked myself shortly thereafter for the distance when his thrashings and voice became dusted with violence. While I can connect into his Why with compassion, I am too busy sitting with my own that’s violently aware vanta isn’t the blackest black. Another thrasher is escorted away by the pressed uniforms. My almost-neighbor noticeably reigns in the gravity of attention he’s wishing to draw upon himself. Yes, make yourself small and quiet so just maybe you can get past the next door.
Another announcement. “YATZ-uhh-BAZI-BINGO!!” I elate in my head, propelling me from my seat while I steady the muscles that want to break into a grin.
Small. Quiet. Keep Moving.
My ticket master is friendly, so I can exhale into a slight smile at the window. ID, ticket, destination. I note my appointment time and exceptionally early arrival as the parking goddesses gave me front row to sit for the 45 minutes waiting to reach here and risk of denial of services now that I’ve missed my time. She asks for my appointment card. I stare down at my empty hands and through the plexi to the ticket and she follows my line of sight.
“No, not that, the one mailed to you. Your time was cancelled already.”
Ahhh. “Yes, yesterday I spoke to someone to confirm times and explained that I couldn’t find that mail. I told the front, here, who and when I am here to see, that I was missing the mail but have an appointment, and they gave me that tab there.”
I can see it click over in her head as her eyes widen in recognition of the issue I saw coming on the way in with the backlog of folx standing in open air. Apparently, even the Pearly Gates locks the double doors when it needs a lunch break, when souls are awaiting to be psychopomped out from the concrete. When I arrived, it had still been early enough to avoid disorganizing the walk-ups that were waiting longer and ahead of me. They were also the frequent fliers I knew I needed to model my interactions by when seeing that a pressed uniform greeted us an hour past noon.
“You weren’t supposed to be put in the queue. I’m sorry, your appointment was cancelled. I can put you back into to the queue for your case manager if she has time today.”
Small. Quiet. <Brain makes the internal resonance of a lobster being boiled. High pitch hissing… water crashing in turmoil.>
“Do you have an idea of how long or when?”
“Sorry” with a headshake of unknowing.
Gut-checking my capacity to hold my breath to maintain the structural integrity of bone and organs before the boulder grinds against my UV sensitive skin, I steady my three legs to walk away to the shadiest, emptiest spot in a sea of hospital bright white- as if we needed to be reminded of our own grime we attached in. At least I’m wearing black… and am still lucky enough to have more amenities than some of my fellow travelers. Others, yes- are adorned in wealth far surpassing what I’ve been able to generate against the friction of gravity working against me in the shadows of this unrelenting boulder. I keep rolling it with a pleasant-enough disguise of being situationally content, while inside I’m screaming as the lobster pot churns.
Some more sitting. Some more escorts out. No wonder Peter has an army of bouncers and a litter of backpacks wallflowered around the Gates. The air here is electrified. DING! My fries, I mean case manager is ready for me as another outburst transpires. I hang back a moment to ensure I don’t get entangled in this multi-party event. Through more doors, down a hall, to the right, I find myself talking through more plastic. It reminds me of visiting the woman who birthed me, the one I saw in prison; a quick shake of that Etch-a-Sketched image…
“What are you applying for?” she darts with her eyes in confusion.
“Uh? Everything? Anything? What are my options?” Eventually, a liaison is fetched as it’s unclear what to do with me.
Things are ruled out, and I’m sent away with another stack of forms and elongated rectangles needed to attest, permit, affidavit that I am who I am and my experience is my own. They need the forms of identification used to acquire my government ID that’s also required before we can proceed further. Turned back to the Gates as it’s not my time, I’m sent back to the concrete where mortals melt beside burner phone pop-up tents and lack of public toilets. Peter looks about ready to punch out for the day as he stares out to the sky in a moment of disassociating away from the clutter and noise of the human experience. It seems that even in Heaven, they daydream about Happy Hour.