Rock & Roll Dreams

Formaly known as an Unnamed children’s book.    
     
----      
     
Ben falls into a deep sleep      
listening to his grandmother      
repeating his favorite story.      
     
Falling through space & time,      
Ben starts dreaming.        
He sees a star chanting at him      
as if it were alive in the night,      
pulling him nearer and near.      
     
The star was changing color,      
it was in constant motion,      
dancing almost.        
The light was wondrous      
as Ben tumbled through the universe      
and through the ripples of space & time.      
     
Ben woke, but he wasn't sure if he was dreaming.        
     
He was back here on earth,      
momentarily;      
back at the creek behind      
the house where he lived,      
standing among the colorful flowers and lights of the city.        
     
He looked over and around him,      
to all that was familiar.        
     
He noticed the neon lights, and even the color of the flowers seemed different.        
     
“Even more vibrant than before”,      
he mumbled.      
“is this Kansas City”   He wondered out loud again,      
stammering for words, but there wasn't any.        
     
It was all just so dreamy.        
It might have been heaven through the scenery.    
     
        
     
Suddenly, a woman's voice jarred him      
with a question,      
“what is that neat and shinny point up there”      
the voice asked,      
“that one point of light, way up straight above?"      
     
Ben looked around and only seen      
a tree that seemed to be pointing to zenith.      
     
“that's a star.”        
Ben replied.      
     
“What's a star”,      
she then asked.        
     
Ben said,      
“a star is eternal”.        
     
“No”,      
the woman replied quickly,      
and she asked again,      
"What is a star?"      
     
Ben: “A star is something we wish upon.”      
     
“No”, again, she said.        
     
She said, “I want to tell you a story”        
Ben sat to listen.        
     
“Long ago”, she began, "that verifiable      
star was formed out of a collapse      
of an interstellar gas cloud,      
a cloud that was filled with unseen      
elements using the force      
of gravitational interactions.      
Gravitational interactions      
that pull on all things near and far.  That one is big compared to your planet's star,        
it's 75 times greater.”      
the woman continued,      
“I did some calculations.”      
     
Ben could not quite believe what he was hearing.        
Nor could he find the woman      
that was speaking in the strange      
celestial voice that sounded so familiar.      
     
He looked at the star, being      
pointed out to him,  from a woman, that he couldn't see,      
as anything more than a tree limb.      
     
Ben stared at the star,      
and then said finally,      
“it almost looks like a piece      
of neon,      
completely alive.        
Its as if its dancing in the mid-night air.”      
     
“Is that what that is, is that air up there?”        
The woman said to Ben.      
     
“No, not like the air that we know here,      
it’s only space-time      
and atmosphere of a different variety.”      
        
She seemed satisfied with Ben's answer, he didn't hear any reply.        
     
If fact he heard nothing again      
as he started feeling gravitational forces      
lifting him up and setting him into motion      
towards outer-space,      
towards the star he'd been discussing      
with the vibrant voice      
of another world.        
     
Ben started falling through space again;      
Falling, falling,      
falling through space and time.        
     
He sees the star chanting as if it were alive,      
     
tumbling through the atmosphere,      
pulling him farther and farther      
away from earth in its direction, rippling through outer-space.      
     
     
In a sudden burst of consciousness      
Ben woke again.      
Not knowing if he was still dreaming.      
     
There is a brightness;      
a saturation of color & hues      
he's never seen before      
gleaned as he opened his eyes;      
it was a different world.      
It was a different place than Kansas City.      
There were no high rises.      
There were no ice-cream parlors      
or bookstores, and there were no guitars.        
     
Ben noticed that there      
seemed to be a vibration      
coming from the rocks      
that built up on the shoreline.   He began walking over.
 
 
Illustration by
Jason Barns,
Kansas City Missouri