THE WANDERING GLASSES
If these appear to be a simple pair of glasses, let me assure you they are nothing of the kind. There is a twisted story behind these glasses that has never been told before.
I lifted them at Whole Foods while trying to acquire some overpriced honey before departing for my trip to Burning Man. If you don't know what Burning Man is, this will give you a small taste of its heaven, but only a glance, I regret to say. Now, back to the glasses. I really didn’t mean to lift them. I picked them up and put them on to read the ingredients on the fancy jar of honey I was about to overpay dearly for. I was so immersed in this particular honey's long list of strange ingredients that I completely forgot I was even wearing the readers on my head.
The next thing I knew I was half way to Burning Man when I had an epiphany. My eyesight had greatly improved sinced this morning. I'd been reading all of the signs with no strain at all. In fact I was sure my eyesight had improved! That’s when I realized what a jack a*s I am, and it wouldn't be the 1st time and certainly not last.
It was too late to turn back. I had already reached the desert and Whole Foods was six hundred miles behind me. These glasses were coming with me and they would see what I saw and experience what I experienced, except when I took them off and stuffed them in my pocket. Then there would only be darkness.
We woke up on a dried up lakebed in the middle of Nevada. This was the playa. The ground was like an endless ocean of sweet cream and the dust that covered it and the air all around was as fine as flour that’s been sifted twice. It looked like heaven.
It was still and quiet and then … a girl with stripped black and yellow socks riding all the way up to her thighs rode by on a fuzzy blue bicycle whose seat was twelve feet high.
She wore a pink tutu and her head was adorned with fake little blue birds and pheasant feathers. She wore no shirt, thus her skin and breasts were coated with the magical dust of the playa making her look like an aborigine plucked straight out of a fairy tale. She rode past me and gave me a wave with her red glove covered hand. I waved back and she whispered, “Welcome home.” That’s when the dust settled and we could see the road.
It was out in the middle of this playa and it led straight to a temple made out of brilliant carved wood created with care and painstaking detail. I had to go to it. I was drawn to it. And as I started for this majestic temple my glasses were suddenly blown off my head.
They went soaring across the playa then took flight in the wind thief’s arms as if they had just been sucked up by the sky and escorted off to oblivion.
I would not see them again for a very long time and this is their story.
Reader is the name I give these glasses because that’s what they do and sometimes they see things without even reading anything at all. On this particular day, Reader found himself flying up into the sky much like Dorothy did when her house was sucked up into the tornado. For Reader the experience wasn’t as precarious. It was more of an adventure and it seemed the magic of the playa was going to show Reader things that no one had ever seen before.
From way up high above the Playa, Reader could see everything. The cars, if they were cars at all. They were all covered in fantastical colors of fur. There were yachts that had been mounted into double decker buses and sailed fifty feet above the ground on dry land. Music boomed out of these creations and some of them even breathed fire.
One blew fire right up Readers nose rest and sent him flipping through the air. Directly below him he beheld a giant octopus reaching up for him and shooting flames out of every tentacle. The damn thing was dancing and it was dancing for Reader. It never meant any harm. He realized the octopus only wanted to dance. Then the wind was gone and gravity jumped center stage to play its part.
Reader came tumbling down towards earth. And just as he was about to meet his end he found himself landing on top of something soft and fuzzy as a swimming pool full of cotton balls. He’d landed in a pink wig that sat atop the head of Grumpy Pink Giant, a tall and skinny fellow who wore a pink suit, black tie and of course the three-foot tall wig upon which Reader had landed.
The pink strands of wig hair obstructed his view. Once in a while Grumpy Pink Giant would hit a bump and Reader would get a glimpse of this wonderland he now found himself in. Then they came to a stop and Grumpy Pink Giant sat down.
A nice fellow dressed in black and white checkers from head to toe came over and asked the pink giant why he had glasses stuck to the side of his wig. Grumpy reached up and pulled Reader down.
He was surprised to find them and announced, “It’s a gift from the Playa, my friend and now I pass them to you!”
And then he offered the checkered gentleman Reader. The checkered gentleman accepted Reader even though he didn’t need glasses. He said that by accepting them he would be a participant in helping Reader find his way home to his original owner, whom he was sure, must be on the Playa. With that the two men bowed to each other and went their separate ways. The checkered man slipped Reader into his topcoat pocket allowing one lens to peek out. He mounted a red unicycle then took off across the Playa.
They went to a dance club, they went to a meditation class, they went to look at art installations that had been erected by genius artists from all over the world. They climbed through a tunnel made up of LED lights and they were put inside a box of mirrors where they spun around in circles while being titillated by 3D lights and music that seemed to have been produced by some alien civilization straight out of Star Trek. They went high on the highest see saw in the world and they went three decks below to explore an abandoned pirate ship in the middle of the desert. At least that’s what Reader was sure of. And while on the ship, Reader was sure he recognized the king pirate himself, Johnny Depp. He’d seen him on the covers of magazines in Whole Foods all the while waiting to be taken by someone to go somewhere. Now he was somewhere. It was a place out of place and time. There was nothing but smiling faces and kindness at every turn. Reader wanted to stay on the Playa forever. He knew that soon the party would be over and everyone would go home, but if he could just slip out of the checkered man’s coat pocket he could stay on the Playa forever. They hit a bump on the unicycle and Reader’s wish came true. He tumbled out and down onto the Playa, just as a storm whipped up and covered him with the dust.
Now there were so many different things that Reader could have seen had he just stayed where we was when he found himself in such bliss, but like the dog that sees the other dog with the bone in the river, Reader gave up his happiness in search for more. He spent five days under the Playa dust and missed the burning of the Burning Man. He missed the dancing and laughter and the mystical lights. He missed the smiles and all the other things he might’ve seen had he of just stayed where he was.
The good news is that Burning Man has a policy called “Leave No Trace Behind” and when the festival ended dozens and dozens of volunteers called Moop Patrollers held hands and just like a search party out to find a missing child, these Moop volunteers were out looking for the smallest bit of trash that had been left on the Playa. The Moopers would not even allow a zip tie to stay behind and so it was that Reader was discovered by the Moop Patrol and since I had filled out a missing glasses report with Burning Man central, a month after I got home I received Reader in my mailbox.
He was still covered in Playa dust and remains that way till this very day. I did go back over to Whole Foods and pay them back for Reader. Being that he came from Whole Foods he cost me $24.99! And for the joy we shared on the Playa, Reader was worth every penny.
CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE AUCTION ON EBAY GOING ON RIGHT NOW FOR "READER"
Share This
Email
Facebook
Twitter
Read Request
My Library
Subscribe
Flag Writing
