Joey's Message

I fell asleep on the bus yesterday.  This is not an unusual occurrence, in fact, typically I try catch about a half hour of sleep each day.  It is, however, unique considering the inordinate amount of caffeine I had consumed at work that day.  I couldn’t stop tapping my foot.  I worried that the tapping might annoy the other bus riders, but when I looked around they all had their headphones inserted deep into their ear sockets.

I tried to close my eyes and force sleep, but the bright sunlight outside turned my dark eyelids a bright array of red, pink and purple.  I closed my eyes tighter, took a deep breath then released.  The colors of my eyelids darkened and pulsed like a rainbow choir.  My skin began to vibrate, out of time with the bus’s vibrations.  Out of time with my heart beat.  The vibrations were cosmic.  They were coming from beyond the earth.  It was the universe sending me a primordial message.

My eyes popped open.  I dried the drool from the corner of my mouth.  What had I been dreaming?  I looked around.  Everyone was plugged in to their own world.  My foot was tapping.

I dug through my bag and found my headphones.  I plugged them into my head and opened the YouTube app on my phone.  I pulled up Queen.  I listened to a song or two, but my thirst for new was not sated.  I pulled up the White Stripes and listened to most of an album, but I needed something else.  I played a round of Candy Crush.  Then I opened YouTube back up and found Joey Ramone’s album “Don’t Worry About Me,” released just after he died of lymphoma.  I started listening to it.  “What a Wonderful World” started playing and I could hear the rainbow choir in the background.  Red and purple flashed in my eyelids and my skin began to receive more vibrations.  Then everything faded.

Framed and matted in darkness I sat in a small, softly lit, green and mint-green room.  A distant sounding music played over the speakers.  I was sitting in a chair, but Joey Ramone was sitting on the edge of the table with this feet in another chair.  He was hunched over with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped.  He was situated perpendicular to me, but his head was turned in my direction.  I looked deep into his red shades and said, “I won’t disappoint you.”

I woke up under Spaghetti Junction.  The bus was moving along at a smooth clip, but something was wrong.  My connection to the universe was broken.  My antenna is rusty from disuse.  I tried to go back to sleep, but my foot would not stop tapping.  I started the album over, but that didn't help.  My eyes would not stay closed and my skin would not receive the vibrations.  I was in a spiritual dead zone.

What had Joey asked of me?  What had I promised?  The universe had only sent me a piece of the message.  I want to do the right thing.  I don’t want to disappoint Joey.  But I don’t know what to do.  Or maybe I do know what to do.  Maybe I’ve always known, but I’m afraid.