Timbaca/Ruslativer

PART ONE:

Falling, falling down.
And I heard her screaming when I was dreaming.
What was I drinking? What was I drinking?
What was she thinking?
When I was sinking.

A meadow.
I can feel the grass in my eyes but instead of hurting it feels calming, more like cotton wool. A brass band can be heard a few seconds away, the sound of Eastern European folk music rings. The sky is definitely coming closer and a warm, pulsating feeling slowly rushes over me, almost like when you were a child and you used to run away from the waves at the beach in the hot summers. There is nobody here and even though you'd think the brass band has people in it, there is definitely nobody here. The air is so still I can see the oxygen molecules float from the grass and pop in front of my tongue. It is so satisfying, like finishing a difficult book or getting away from a cardboard rhinocerous that chases you in your dreams. I realise I am slightly dyslexic which makes this all the more enjoyable. A mixing of senses and pictures and visions and feelings. Even better when meelings are fixed. Suddenly, a xylophone walks up to me out of nowhere.

"Pretty empty in this meadow,"
"Yeah," I reply.

I am unsure what the etiquette is on talking to personified xylophones. It's really quite absurd. I remain quiet but offer a friendly smile, hoping the xylophone has eyes to see this and acknowledge it in his (I assume it is a male xylophone through the presence of a beater laying gently on the top and the deep voice) wooden frame. Still, the warm feeling pulses through me but now tinged ever so slightly with a shadow.

"I'm the professor here," he says. His words seem laborious, strung out like a hungry drunk fumbling for the last coins in his coat, hoping to bite into some delicious meat. The xylophone seems anxious, but happily tired. Saying no more, I decide to probe this curious statement.

"The professor of what? Is there a -," interrupting me,
"The professor of history! I assume you're here to learn?" is the unpredictable reply.
"I don't even know how I got here. I want to ask 'what is going on' but I'm not sure I'll understand,"
"I see. Well, quite frankly, sir, you are dead. This is a realm, portal, dream, dimension, place, thing, cloud, city, field, river, lamp, tyre, string, whatever you want to call it and if you want to get it big time, go ahead and get it big time,"
"Dead..?" I was taken aback. I assumed when I laid to rest last evening after getting terribly stoned with my friends that I would dream heavily and that this was the predictable surrealist nonsense that my brain usually came up with. However, this just felt too real. Of course it did. Never before had I seen things or heard things with such clarity. And the conviction with which the xylophone has informed me of my death! Gone was the rolling, slurring prose I heard earlier. He was definitely a professor and I should respect that.

"You can have twenty-one sons and twenty-one daughters," he suddenly said.
"What do you mean?"
"Clearly you haven't studied enough, it's probably time you went to your lecture. We'll get to know each other very well, very soon." and with that he simply vanished. Just disappeared out of my field of vision. None of this silly childish magic poofs and dust and smoke, the xylophone simply vanished. No noises. Silent. Predictable.

And I stood alone in the empty meadow waiting for something to happen, feeling, once again, very warm.