On The Run

Today, I awoke from a dream
It was a revelation
Almost Patmosian, whatever that means
But that's evidently another story
It began with some standard bullshit fight with evil
In this case, an apparently all-powerful hooded and cloaked figure

We fled
Yes, we
I was not alone
But there’s no escape
You're on the tee, but there's nowhere to tee the ball up
You’re trying to pack, but the chaos is too great
You can't remember where you parked the car
The birds come over, but the gun falls apart
The train is late, or it doesn't stop
Your hands are too big, the world is too small
You don't mean to plunge the knife under the waiter's ribs
But somehow you do
You push on the footbrake as hard as you can
But the car keeps rolling slowly forwards onto the track
Or backwards over the cliff

Well, it wasn't one of those
It was the final showdown
The final confrontation between good and evil
He caught up the wraith
He was strong, too strong to defeat in hand-to-hand
We tried everything
It all boiled down and expanded out and up
Into a sort of Pilot Wings videogame over a circus site
Guy Laliberté, gone mad
Canvas and people and towering smoke arches
And juggling capsules and catching knives
And teamwork and comrades
And it was complicated and exhausting
But we won the day

We stood, exhausted but triumphant
Smiling at one another
Clasping forearms and hugging
Like bad Shakespearean actors
But then we looked up and around
They were gathering anew above us
Darkening the sky
Hordes and hordes
Too many to count
Poised to attack

Overwhelming odds
Against we happy few
We band of brothers
We were prepared to die
Almost relieved to have given our all
When just out of sight, to my right
Just beyond the periphery of my vision
Like a raging bonfire in a high wind, someone spoke
A voice, like Atticus Finch
Begone!
The fire forward oblique voice ordained

It brooked no rebuttal
The hordes dissolved
And all around the circus tents
Open saloon cars full of bad guys
Milled around to make their escape
Skidding in the mud
But there was nowhere to run
It was over