Elliott Hall

Shoe Shine

Today I put on my “nice” shoes. While riding the subway to work, a man sat down across from me an looked right at them. He became agitated and kept talking. I realized he was talking to me so I hit pause on my music player and asked him what the issue was. He said “Man, I could but new shoes anytime!”. I kinda stared at him, thinking “Great! I can’t!”. He made some comment about his old things that I couldn’t hear. I laughed it off, and we bonded when he made some implication about me concerning the cigarettes that I “probably” smoke. Just a man who wanted someone to listen to his problems. I had nowhere else to go so I did. No big deal.

My shoes were shined. I shine them myself, its a necessary skill from AFROTC. The shoes themselves were issued as part of the SDU and they are one of the few things I got to keep from the whole affair. So, I got them for free tecnically, gratis of the American Taxpayer. I like them, they’re simple, and its sorta nice to take a little pride in their shine. I think I do a good job.

Good enough of a job to generate random jealousy in passerbys, apparantly.

Gangsters

I was in a city near a river. The river had been flooding constantly, and large parts of the city were destroyed, replaced by lakes. We went to the riverbank, and it was supposed to be like a beach. Instead, green, thick, oily waves from the river, which was so wide you couldn’t see the other side, lapped against a filthy soil beach. We went to a bar, and drank water, pure water, and I thought it was the greatest thing I had ever tasted. I drank glass after glass after glass. Then, myself and my companions, went to a bank of sorts, and snuck into the vault. There, we proceeded to disarm security measures and steal some documents. One of my companions became irritable with me, and I suspected he was going to try to kill me. I gave the documents to another companion and fled, into a pine forest. The river overflowed again, and water rushed into the forest.

Construction Site

I was on a construction site, planning to demolish a building. My uncle was there, with a new, middle-aged, Japanese wife. I attempted to climb a fire-escape ladder that fell apart and had to find another way out of the building. While outside, I went into a tent where a very short hispanic man attacked me with a knife. He couldn’t use the knife very well at all and I dodged it. For some reason, I felt pity and taught him how to attack me. I then told him to attack me again. I took out my knife and stabbed him in the groin. He sat down, bled, and cried.

Some kind of game…

I was on a team, playing some kind of game on flying skates. There were snakes on the floor. Small robots zipped around, they were shaped like electric plug adaptors, and painted brightly. Finally the game ended and I left. I went out into an atrium, flew through that and went to a tiny apartment on a high floor in the corner of a wedge shaped tower. My apartment had the windows knocked out in the corner, and a well-used reeinforced ledge beneath them. There was a chair and a big mess around it just inside the windows, there were towels and curtains blew about outside the window. I retrieved a drink of some kind from under the chair, and held on, one foot on the railing and the other off it.

I talked to an Indian woman sitting in a similar chair nearby, smalltalk, pleaseantries. She was paying more attention to the computer monitor in front of her. The air was hot despite how high we were, and she was only wearing a yellow bikini top and some kind of long skirt. Finally I wiped my brow and said I had to be going. I left the messy apartment, pushing off the ledge thinking this would be the one time my skates failed and I would fall.

I flew around the building, to what I can only assume was a stepping disc. It took me to a place where there had been a volcanic eruption. I put the towel over my mouth for the ash and proceeded into a twilight looking for someone. I never found them. I got dust in my eyes and woke up rubbing them.

Heaven’s not enough

heaven’s not enough
if when you get there…
just another blue
and heaven’s not enough
you think you’ve found it
and it loses you

cause I couldn’t cry
cause I turned away
couldn’t see the score
didn’t know the pain
of leaving yesterday really far behind
in another life
in another dream
by a different name
gave it all away
for a memory
and a quiet lie
and I felt the face
of a cold tonight
still don’t know the score
but I know the pain
of leaving everything really far behind
and if I could cry
and if I could live what truth I did then take me there
heaven goodbye

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