History

Don´t follow leaders, watch the parkin´ meters

Winn Dillon´s 116th Dream

It all began when Winn gave away his token. He couldn´t really remember anyhow where he was going in these modern times. He was reading the prophecies on the subway walls, when a one-legged bum stuck a paper cup under his nose. I pity the poor immigrant, Winn thought, and tossed his token into the paper cup. It was not dark yet. He decided to walk.
Having turned from Fifth Avenue onto 42nd Street, he found himself trudging along a bunch of watchtowers. Hezekiah 2, verse 16, one of them said. Where wood is chopped, splinters must fall. But verily, verily, through a shot of love thou shalt be saved in this world gone wrong, and find mercy under the red sky, whenst thou walkest together through life with Krizzmess in ye heart.
Winn stood there in mixed-up confusion, blinking his eyes in the low evening sun. Gelatine anointed princes with golden ring fingers looked down on him from the Media Control Towers, determined to keep their view.

A guy carrying a guitar case stopped and said: I am the carpenter. From Galilee? Winn asked, splinters in mind. From the freight train, the carpenter replied. That´s when Van Hel and Werny Orbison turned up. We´re back from the island and we´re out of whisky, they said, we´ve even been knocking on heaven´s door. Winn looked up and down the street, but there was no liquor store in sight. Instead he beheld Claus, who seemed to have materialized out of thin air right in front of him. Must be Santa, Winn thought.
The carpenter tipped his hat and marched on. Before disappearing in the crowd, he turned around and cried out: Everybody must get stoned! This gave them an idea which direction to take. The four men walked to Wilbury Station, where Ralf Drum was just rolling a cigarette. They asked him to come along. Bingo, Ralf Drum said, I´ve been looking for a new blood group, anyway. Where shall we go? Through a simple twist of fate, the carpenter passed by again, and said the answer was blowing in the wind. Winn spat on his right forefinger and stuck it up in the air. Tough shit ahead, he exclaimed, we must cross the Atlantic Ocean! Not to worry, said Santa Claus calmly, we´ll just take the next subway.

They were rattling down the subterranean like rolling thunder. Although there was still snow outside, July sat across from them just like a woman. She had forgotten which stop to get off at, and joined the group with time out of mind. Meanwhile, the first buds were beginning to sprout on the other side of the Atlantic. Wolfman D was waiting with his seventeen guitars on highway 61. A loudspeaker warned: Attention, please. Slow train coming! When Wolfman hopped on, everybody welcomed him like an old buddy, and after all, seven is an even number. The subway gathered speed like an old steam locomotive. This time, the driver wasn´t Mr. Jones, but blind Willie, for which even the dead were grateful. Things had changed. There was no blood on the tracks. A new morning lay ahead, they just had to bring it all back home before the flood. Then they would sit down and have a drink. On the rocks, of course.
This is how it all began, and even a fool such as I knows that every single word is true.

© 2019 Dylan on the rocks.