VISIONS OF DAVE

I was walking through the park and it had been an okay day. Nothing special, but nothing went wrong either, and it's always important to count your blessings. I remember the sky was looking a bit dreary, and in retrospect, I had been in a daze all day long. Nothing seemed to affect me. If eyes were really the windows to the soul, it probably would've looked like I had misty white cataracts.

You know how some words are inherently better in certain accents? There were a pair of Jamaican guys sat on a park bench, and apropos of nothing, one of them enthusiastically shouted 'Booker Dewitt!' as though he were calling out the name of a messiah. Maybe he was a big Bioshock fan, I don't know. All I know is, in that accent with that particular intonation, it sounded more like 'Booker Dooweet!' and that this surprised me and made me smile like a lunatic in equal amounts.

Further on through the park I saw a second important thing. A woman rode past me on her bicycle. She had a big black coat on and a woolly had with dangling bobbles from either side. Either arm was held down by a carrier bag from what I assumed to be a wholefood store, but I only caught a glimpse of the bags. She really looked like she knew what she was doing, like she could handle herself and life was going well. Sometimes I do my shopping on a bike, even though the supermarket isn't far. I couldn't put my finger on it at the time, but she made me smile. Looking back, I think it's because it reminded me of Holland, and the way everyone there rides their bikes everywhere, for every occasion. To shop, to go nightclubbing, to work.

Later on, I was in the Student Union bar. I wasn't drinking, I barely have enough change for the newspaper. Dave Grohl came to me in a vision and I don't really know what it was he was trying to say but the way he was saying it you really know he meant it and it was so beautiful and that things were starting to make sense and I nearly cried and then I could hear distant echoes of Bianca asking me if I was okay and then her hand waved in front of my face and Dave disappeared.

It was Bianca's first Guy Fawke's night and she was very excited. When we left the Student Union, a big purple firework went off in the sky in front of us. It felt like a scene out of a corny romance, except we weren't sharing an intimate moment and the firework wasn't a metaphor for our souls touching. At least I don't think it was.

On our way home there were more fireworks visible across the parks. This made Bianca really happy, really excited. Happiness is like heat, it conducts. I saw how this celebration I had seen countless times was so fresh and brilliant again, and it made me happy. It had been a touch and go day. My eyes were misty and my brain had emotion fog. But the little spikes of happiness, like tokes on an imaginary cigarette that lasted all day, seemed so much more important and profound because of it.

As for the vision, I'm still working on that one.

-Lewis