You sit in a smokey Jazz club in New York City, wondering just what you are doing here, where you are going, and where you've been. A thin man with a receding hairline leans back and with a knowing smile says, "Hey, man, I just press the keys." At first this sounds funny, like a line from a children's cartoon, a giant cat saying, "Hey, man, I just press the keys." But it keeps circling and slamming in your head like a pair of cowboys boots in a dryer, rising with great effort and falling with none at all. It slows and eventually stops. I just press the keys. You've only been pressing the keys, blindly wandering through your meaningless existence, always knowing but never acknowledging that there is an entire other world tucked in the alleyways and storm drains of your consciousness. Before the man speaks you know what he is going to say-- four syllables that are as familiar as post-masturbatory apathy and twice as haunting. Fidelio.
A Chipotle chicken burrito uncomfortably turns in your stomach as you contemplate what you must do. Am I ready? Will they all laugh at me? Will I understand the waiver system? A beautiful African-American waitress named Mandy puts a Moscow Mule in front of you, and raises an approving eyebrow at your disturbingly large erection. It's welcome here, but it cannot open a tab. You didn't order the mule, and aren't positive that you aren't allergic to ginger, but still you swig, and your tongue and inner cheeks sizzle in sweet appreciation. The man sitting across from you is gone, and so is the Jazz band. Now, an elderly Hawaiian woman plays a Ukelele and sings a cover of Alice Cooper's "Poison." Your throat seizes and everything is clear. You are allergic to ginger.
"Hey. Hey, this is you." You open your eyes and see a middle-aged Indian man in a headdress with his fingers in your face. "This is you." Is this me? Are you you? Blinking doesn't bring about its normal clarity and the world refuses to come into focus. The Indian's fingers snap in your face, and you suddenly have better vision than ever before. Just to test it you look at the cab driver's information four feet away from you, and without strain, read the minuscule print saying that his name is Ashram Vishnu and he lives at 33 Atharva Veda Blvd in the Bronx. "This is you."
You look into your wallet and see that it is empty. Outside the door is a giant gate, and a mansion barely visible a hundred yards behind it. You show the driver your empty wallet; he waives it off and shows that you have already paid him with half a hundred dollar bill. The other half sits in the jacket pocket of your suit, a suit you are quite certain you've never owned. When you open the door to leave the cab, Ashram says, "Wait. Your bag." You're bag? Your bag. This is you.
The bag contains a long black cloak and a wooden mask. You turn the mask over in your hands, feeling the contours of its grain, instantly knowing its thousands of years of life, and hearing the scream of its tumultuous end. The face is that of bearded vagary, classic in style. It is a face on antiquity, of knowledge, and sorrow. It is the face of a Pre-Socratic All-Star, and it's eyes are your eyes. This is you. You put the mask on and exit the cab, pressing your hands together and thanking Ashram, he returns the valediction.
The cab rolls silently off into the night (could it have been electric?), as you walk up to the massive gate. Two masked men, open the gate with a bow. Their faces are those of Greek slaves, hungry and trusting, thankful and somehow accusatory. You silently pass them and glide up the driveway to the Mansion. The sounds of the wild night envelop you-- the crickets and frogs, the wind through the trees and the trickling of a nearby stream. You remember a dream you once had. You were the captain of a great ship, amidst a horrific storm. Your men cried for your help as the G0dz effortlessly flung them off mast and deck. One-by-one you would order new charges up from below deck. "BenJarvus Green-Ellis! This is you! Don't fight the storm, be the storm!" BenJarvus valiantly tied his dreadlocks in a ponytail and grabbed a rope. He had barely pulled five yards of it when a giant squid plucked him off the ship and drowned him in the water. As the casualties mounted, and the ship seemed destined for the bottom of the ocean, you mustered all your strength, harkening back to a primal power unknown for generations, and bellowed, "Get me Johnny Knox!" You awoke just as the snapped mast came plunging into your skull.
The sounds of the night are gone. Your heartbeat fills the emptiness and grows deafeningly loud, while you creep toward a giant double door illuminated by a solitary oil lamp. A bald butler in a tuxedo stands below the light with his hands clasped in an x-formation over his crotch. Is it Anthony Hopkins? When your eyes meet his own, you see they are old but tireless, a monument to perseverance like the unconscionably grey photos of families watching a sandstorm where their crops once grew. As you near the front door you can make out some sounds from inside the mansion-- a symphony of screams, animal, human, and otherwise, garbage cans smashing through glass tables, a drunken man outlining the SEC's dominance of college football as a logical remnant of slavery, and a deep, surely too deep you think, and slow, unnervingly slow, rendition of Regulate by Warren G rhythmically thumping through the walls like the death rattle of a million-year spin of Fortuna's Wheel. The oil lamp abruptly flickers out. The man in the tuxedo is now only lit by moonlight, but with your recently blossomed vision you can barely make out that he now wears the head of Blue, the Indianapolis Colts mascot. He slowly bows and asks, "What, aspiring Pre-Socratic All-Star, is the password?"
