CHASING RAINBOWS

by william my favourite colour is 

brown

I got this idea when I was around 5 years of age…before things became fucked up in my head, that I would chase rainbows for a living. At the time it seemed like a pretty easy thing to do, and even now…over 30 years later it seems easy, but…it’s not. In fact, it’s one of the hardest things that I ever attempted to do in my life…

PART 1:

I FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE IN MY OWN SKIN

INVENTION IDEA:

COMFORTABLE SKIN

QUERY:

WILL THE INVENTION OF COMFORTABLE SKIN MAKE YOU FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE IN YOUR OWN BODY?

RED

My first memory of a rainbow was strange and violent. It was in the backseat of a car that was going really fast and being chased by the police for an armed robbery that my mom and her boyfriend had just committed at a Tim Hortons.

My mom and I were poor…

I mean, we had running water and heat most of the time...and I can remember lots of days being able to watch television until I fell asleep, but beyond that, we lived in a crappy area in Toronto called “Parkdale”, where there were always lots of crazy people yelling and fighting. Our neighbour to the right had a colic baby that screamed and cried constantly, and our neighbour to the left would bang and moan on our door at weird hours like some kind of zombie.

It was just my mom and I that lived in a tiny bachelor apartment, that is if you didn’t count the cockroaches, bed bugs, and rats that also lived with us. But I was surprisingly okay with these critters after my mom told me that they weren’t real, that they were “nature spirits.” I mean, they looked and felt real, but when you are young your mom is god, and you don’t question god…right?

But then this guy…Sandy, started coming by and hanging around more and more. I was okay with him cause he always brought me something when he came over. And not candy or anything like that, but cool stuff like video games, ghetto blasters, and camcorders.

Beyond the stuff he brought over he was pretty nice to my mom and me. She seemed happy. We all did. So he ended up moving in. The funny thing was that the gifts never stopped coming even after he moved in. After awhile, we had a collection of televisions, stereos, cassette tapes…a whole bunch of shit. He even “found” lots of weightlifting and exercise equipment, though none of us were to be considered the sporty type.

The apartment was packed and we couldn’t move without bumping into each other and knocking junk all over the place.

“We need to get a bigger pad.” Sandy said one day.

“But we have no money.” My mom said looking at him with one eye cocked.

Oh yeah, my mom only had one eye. I should mention that now before we get too far along. She lost her right eye when she was young to some kind of “green eyed swamp monster.” Well, that’s what her parents said to her and they died before they could tell her the truth. I mean…she didn’t go around telling people that she lost her eye to a green eyed swamp monster…people get pretty stressed if you tell them something like that…they think you’re pulling their leg or making fun of them in some way. So my mom made up another story that she got shot in the eye from a bb gun from some neighbourhood bully…people accepted that story a little bit better.

“Oh, you poor dear…tsk, tsk…you poor thing. Well, don’t you worry,” they would say, “god has a way of straightening these things out.”

I mean, who’s to say right. Maybe he or she or it does straighten these things out. But the shitty thing about it is that you don’t always get to see the payback…what am I talking about!?! It was all a bunch of bullshit anyways…the bb gun, the swamp monster. But my mom seemed to enjoy the pity and the attention that having only one eye brought, and I must say, it didn’t seem to hurt her love life in any way!

Plus, I should also mention for fun, that she was really creative with her eye patches. In fact, the only time I can remember seeing her with the standard black one was at a funeral for an ex-boyfriend of hers, otherwise her patches were quite colourful and artistically designed. My favourite was the one she would break out at Halloween every year…which was no eye patch!...showing just a shriveled, dead eye. The kids and parents would freak out making my mom and I howl with laughter. The best part was, they’d sometimes run off and leave all their candy behind!

“I got a plan!” Sandy said taking my mom and huddling up in the corner.

I was eating Captain Crunch cereal and watching 6 television shows at once on 6 different televisions, while they whispered loudly behind a stack of vinyl records.

“But we can’t bring him, he’s too young!” I heard my mom whisper glancing at me out of the corner of her good eye.

“Why not, he might be good luck!” Sandy whispered back, “I heard that the Chinese always brought their kids along in situations like this as a bit of good luck…it couldn’t hurt.”

So there we were…ripping it down the Don Valley Parkway at an unholy speed! My Tim Hortons hot chocolate that my mom had somehow grabbed for me during the robbery had spilt all over my Blue Jays jacket and Jimmy Buffet’s “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” song was cranked to the max.

The cops asked me later if I was scared at all during the chase, like they cared, but I said “no”. I mean, other than not being too happy about the hot chocolate all over me, it was a pretty festive time. My mom and Sandy were passing a “Mexican cigarette” to one another and singing jovially along with Jimmy Buffet and I was staring at this beautiful rainbow that we seemed to be heading straight for.

I mean, true…it ended badly with our car hitting the rear fender of another car causing us to spin out of control and then flipping over a bunch of times before ending up in a ditch. And when Sandy tried to run for it, the cops shot him dead. My mom was unconscious but still alive and I was hanging upside down like a bat in the backseat and I not only learned that seat belts save lives, but that at the bottom of a rainbow is not necessarily a pot of gold, but someone who was dead…for the rainbow seemed to be coming out of Sandy’s head. Which got me thinking, as I had some time to kill before they flipped the car over and got us out…

…if there was a dead body on one end of the rainbow…what was on the other end?

ORANGE

After the accident life was pretty sucky for a good chunk of time. My mom was sent to prison for ten years and I went and lived with my grandparents in the middle of suburbia. No rainbows in suburbia I’m afraid, they are far too colourful and filled with life. They stick out quite a bit and I would often see men in private security outfits grabbing rainbows and telling them to “scram if they knew what was good for them.”

When I look back there wasn’t too much rainbow action during that time. That September I was tossed in jail where they threw away the key…whoops…sorry…I mean I was put into the finest of public education systems…school…where if you were a young man hanging out with other young men, the topic of rainbows wasn’t something that usually came up too much.

I mean, imagine being in a locker room after gym class. You’re toweling off from the shower, feeling good about the goal you just scored in floor hockey. You know…feeling celebratory. And as you are sitting on the bench and slipping on your tighty whities, you begin to shoot the shit with the all-star quarterback next to you…

“Hey man, I’ve seen you toss the pigskin a few times…looking good out there…it’s funny but the trajectory of the football thrown through the air towards the receiver in the end zone, looks exactly like the arc of a rainbow, that’s pretty cool right?”

Right. So, as you can imagine it’s not a big hit with the boys and not really a big hit with the girls either. You’d probably think that girls would love a young sensitive man who wasn’t afraid to show a softer side by enjoying the finer things in life like unicorns, butterflies, and rainbows. And maybe some girls do like that stuff, but not at that age, not in that environment. I mean…I didn’t really want to talk about rainbows either.

Hell, you know what? I haven’t been honest with you. I’m giving the impression that after the accident I became this tough and bitter prison inmate, locking away rainbows in the attic space of my heart. But the truth is, rainbows had a very special meaning for me and they held a mystery that I was eager to solve, one in which might unlock a secret that had evaded humans ever since we were first born on this earth…the secret of life after death. So, I not only liked rainbows…I FUCKING LOVED THEM!!!

Everywhere I went I had a notebook to take down rainbow sightings. I’d pencil in the date and time, where I was, what I was thinking about, and how I was feeling. I had a disposable camera and binoculars. And when I was on the bus going to school I’d take the window seat, and in every class I’d try and sit near the window, hoping to catch a rainbow.

“Chase….Chase…MR.GORDON!!! Earth to Chase, is anybody home? Anybody in there that can tell me the answer to…”

…what’s on the other side of a rainbow? No, it’s true I couldn’t answer that. But, in my opinion, what was way more important than whatever the teacher was asking me was the fact that outside my second floor math class was a double rainbow that had just appeared after the rain had stopped and the sun popped its head out. Christ, I can remember thinking…2 rainbows…that’s 4 ends. If 2 ends were coming out of dead bodies then the other 2 ends held…life?

“CHASE!?!”

I turned from the rainbows and stared at my teacher. The class was filled with shits and giggles at my inattention.

“Thank you for returning to earth’s atmosphere, now if you would be so kind then, and tell us what you saw on your out of body experience?”

God dammit, I don’t have time for these games! I gotta get out of here…I got the itch!

You see, anytime I saw a rainbow, let alone a double, I would get the tingles…the itch…the ants in my pants. Screw this class crap! I had some field work to do, people to recruit, transportation to attain…what I needed more than anything at that time was a voice. To be able to stand up and say to the teacher…to the class…

“You know what? This class is for the birds, I’m outta here!”

But I had no balls when it came to stuff like that. I had no self-confidence back then. I wasn’t cool. I was a skinny boy with a bowl haircut and a teal sweater with a rainbow on it…a freak with nature. So instead I just sat there and said nothing while the class laughed, the teacher lectured, and the rainbows faded away.

YELLOW

My best friend from about grade 6 to grade 10 was a kid named Ollie Ollenburger. His parents usually called him Owl, and so that’s what I called him as well.

Owl was super into nature, particularly insects. He was always carrying around jars of specimens and had a magnifying glass tied around his neck for easy access. At lunch or after school we’d wander around a patch of forest that was on the school grounds looking for bugs to collect. I remember he used to wear these glasses that made his eyes really big and he’d get right down on the ground, trying to get as close as he could in order to see what was lurking in the grass. One time we were closely examining the inner workings of some tree bark, when some kids from school saw us and started telling everyone that we were a bunch of “homosexual tree huggers,” which I can confess to you, didn’t help my already piss poor self esteem. But whatever…kick a man while he’s down. The end result was that Owl and I made sure to do our research a little more privately.

One day Owl had a bunch of crickets in a jar and we took them out, gave them names and countries and created little sporting events for them. That is, we created a kind of Olympics for them. Like putting objects in front of their path so they had to hurdle over them, or putting some water in a tub, then gluing on a popsicle stick to be used as the diving board, then pushing the crickets off and scoring their dives.

And so we were playing “Olympics” one afternoon in Owl’s backyard when Owl in mid-sentence fell to the ground and started thrashing about. Later his parents explained to me that he had epileptic seizures a couple of times a year and that there was nothing to be afraid of.

“You just have to make sure he doesn’t hit his head or swallow his tongue.” His mom said.

That’s all well and good but I was pretty freaked out, and I felt paralyzed myself. I couldn’t do anything, couldn’t help…couldn’t scream or run inside and get his mom…nothing. But what did happen was that during his thrashing he had moved the hose that was attached to a water sprinkler, and the water sprinkler was now positioned in such a way that the sun hitting it caused a little rainbow to appear…and it was then that Owl’s seizure stopped, and I began to think that everything was going to be okay…not only for Owl but for myself and for everyone as well. It was this unbelievable calm that had washed over me, like being submerged in a warm bath. I was at peace. That feeling had never come over be before. Wait that wasn’t true, when I was staring at the rainbow coming out of Sandy’s head I felt the same feeling…and to minor amounts, I felt the same feeling every time I saw a rainbow. But at Owl’s that day it was the first time that I had become conscious of that feeling…that peace.

Thinking back, Owl was probably the greatest friend that I’ve ever had. He was always bringing me a photograph of a rainbow to put into my scrapbook, or a rainbow sticker for my sticker book. And he was always just as excited to go rainbow chasing as I was, dropping what we were doing and hopping onto our bikes and going as fast as our little legs would take us. I wonder what he’s doing now, probably a field biologist or a prison guard or something random like that…maybe he’s even a homosexual tree hugger! I mean, I hope he’s doing well.

GREEN

When you’re a kid there’s only so much rainbow chasing that you can do. I mean, in some sense it’s easier. You have a little more free time, not as many responsibilities. But it’s harder to get around, there’s only so many rainbows that you can get to with a bike and a bus pass. A lot of the time it was just looking at rainbow photos in my room and fantasizing about them, like a pre-pubescent teen looking at women in porno magazines and fantasizing about having sex. I wanted that same feeling that I got when looking at rainbows, I wanted to touch them, to hold them, to penetrate their mystery.

You have to be lucky to see the bottom of a rainbow, and just as importantly, you have to be able to take advantage of that luck to see the other end, and that’s what happened to me one summer when I was fifteen years old…

Owl had just moved with his parents out west to Saskatchewan and although that was a bit of a bummer, I was actually feeling pretty excited cause I was a few weeks away from my sixteenth birthday. It wasn’t so much that it was my sixteenth or my birthday…it meant that I would be able to drive! My grandparents had already promised me full use of a beat up car that they never used in the garage. It was a rusty, blue hatchback that was real ugly. It had a giant rust crater on the hood, the window in the back was missing and patched together with plastic bags and duct tape. Some mice had moved in and gnawed through the seat cushions and the radio only picked up a few stations. Perfect I thought…perfect that is…for chasing rainbows.

It was a gorgeous summer’s day. The sun was out and the sky was a pretty light blue. Not a cloud in sight. Everyday I checked the weather in the newspaper, on the radio, and also on tv, and they all said there was 0% chance of precipitation.

So, with no chance of a rainbow I decided I would clean out the car for a bit, and then I went inside to make a little lunch for myself. My grandparents were off playing bridge with some friends, which meant I had the whole house to myself. But, as I was sitting down in front of the tv to begin eating, the doorbell rang. Putting my plate down I walked over to the door and opened it, seeing a lady in a white tennis outfit.

“Oh hello,” she said “is Dan…here…?” and seeing the confused look on my face quickly strung together a few more sentences, “I was supposed to meet Dan at this address…and as you can see we had arranged to play tennis together.”

Strange…my grandfather play tennis? The closest thing to a tennis racket I’d seen him pick up was the television remote. I mean, we had watched tennis matches before, and he seemed to be fairly passionate about the sport but…there was no need to tell her all that, so I just told her that Dan and my grandmother were playing bridge and probably wouldn’t be back until the evening.

“Oh…he told me to come over today…I’m pretty sure he said today…well now that I say that I’m not so sure…shoot I was hoping to get a match in…and I drove all this way across…geez…”

Geez, now I was beginning to feel kinda bad for her so I invited her in.

“No, no I couldn’t…but you don’t happen to like tennis do you?”

I told her that I did indeed play from time to time, mostly by myself, hitting a tennis ball against the wall at school.

“You wouldn’t feel like playing would you? I know you don’t know me but I drove all this way and I cancelled a couple of appointments and well…how about it?”

What the hell I though. This could be my good deed of the day, and I had nothing to do and no rainbows to chase so I rolled the dice and said “Yeah sure, why not?”

So I quickly ran into my room and threw on a pair of shorts, I hopped into her faded orange van with bumper stickers telling me that she liked such things as “nature”, “ghandi” and the “grateful dead.”

Inside the van was like a mini-apartment. It had a small bed, a bookshelf with books and magazines, a propane stove, cooking utensils and a little fridge.

She smiled and said her name was “Virginia” and then she cranked up the music and peeled some rubber.

She talked the entire way to the tennis courts but I couldn’t hear a word of what she said due to the decimal level of the music. The problem was that I didn’t want to be rude and ask her to turn it down, but I also didn’t want to be annoying and keep saying “pardon” or “could you repeat that?” Instead I would randomly smile or nod every so often, and then every once in awhile I’d say “oh yeah” or “that’s cool”…it seemed to work and she kept on talking until we got to the tennis courts. Surprisingly nobody was there, so we took the centre court

.

The game itself wasn’t very dramatic. My serve was off and she took advantage of that…kicking my ass pretty good. I mean, it didn’t bother me losing to a girl, a woman more like it. I didn’t really think along gender lines like that. Plus, I wasn’t very competitive by nature. Anyway, what I wanted to say is that it was a fun game. After, we hung out in the van drinking some apple juice from her mini-fridge. The music wasn’t on, so I could hear what she was saying this time. She told me that she worked as a secretary in the same office as my grandfather and that they were pretty good office friends. She was 40 years old if I could believe that, I wasn’t sure why I couldn’t believe it. She was divorced. No kids. She had always wanted to be a photographer for “National Geographic”, but gave up that dream so that she could help her ex-husband run for some sort of political office. Devoted her life to him and his career until the day she walked into his office and caught him with his pants down. Now she was kind of lost. Stuck. I told her to take up photography again but she changed the subject and started laughing at the way I served in tennis.

“Do you know that when you hit the ball…it does this…heheee…it does this big arc…like a rainbow?”

Like a rainbow…did she just say that when I hit the ball it flies through the air like a rainbow?

“Like a rainbow…” I mumbled.

“Yeah, like a big rainbow,” she laughed making an arc with her hand “No wonder I beat you so badly!”

And then she reached over and touched my hand and I felt…I felt…like I had just seen a rainbow. That feeling of warmth. That feeling of peace swept over my body…and then I could feel something else and i became confused at what I was feeling. So I quickly opened the door, jumped out and began to run as fast as I could. I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t care. I just needed to run.

Which didn’t end up being too far, cause I had just run around for two hours, but it was far enough. I stopped and was breathing hard. I looked back and didn’t see the van or Virginia so I walked over to a park bench and began to dry heave. Christ I thought, what the hell’s going on here? What just happened back there? A nice game of tennis was all that happened. A friendly lady…shooting the shit with one another. Nothing wrong with that. But then she touched my hand, and things got weird. Why would it get weird though? I mean, it doesn’t get weird when my nana touches my hand. Of course not! I hope not? Jesus, I gotta calm down here. Get it together. Get my head back on…my breathing under control. I’m fucking hyper ventilating here!

“C’mon Chase, pull yourself together!” I yelled at myself and then slapped my face a couple of times. Pretty stars appeared over my head and I felt a little better. I took a few deep breaths and leaned back on the bench and looked up at the sky. That’s better. Just some kind of panic attack was all. I should go back and apologize to Virginia. She must think I’m crazy. But then she might touch me again. Fuck, maybe I have gone loony tunes!

Later…in bed after a warm bath and a cup of chamomile tea I felt like myself again and better able to go over the day’s events. Okay…let’s take a look at this. Everything was fine until she touched me and then I began to have the same sensations as when I saw a rainbow. What did that mean? That I liked her? That I liked her as much as I liked rainbows?

At the time, I didn’t consider my chance meeting with Virginia to be a lucky break…but like my Uncle Phil once said to me before he went missing off of the Bermuda coast:

“Luck is being able to make use of chance. It means that when something goes wrong you can turn it to your own advantage. It doesn’t mean always drawing a good hand. It means that when you draw a nothing hand or a bad hand, that if you keep an open mind and a fresh pair of underwear handy, that it may still indeed be your lucky day!”

BLUE

You know what sucks? Getting pulled over by the police when you’re in hot pursuit of a rainbow! That sucks big time!

“Why were you driving so fast, son?”

“Chasing rainbows.”

“Step out of the car please.”

So I step out and the guy handcuffs me and puts me into the back of the cop car. I’m sitting there feeling pretty pissed off cause I can see the rainbow slowly disappearing…but does the cop care…you guessed it.

I told Virginia this later and she thought I was a doodoo head for telling the truth.

“Why didn’t you just tell him you were late for a date or a job or something? He would’ve given you a ticket and you would’ve been on your way.”

“But I thought cops were really good at telling if you were lying or not. That they could sniff out a lie, like a police dog could sniff out drugs in a suitcase.”

“Well, how far did telling the truth get you?” She said.

Well…it got me a free ride to the cop shop, is where it got me. They made me sit in a holding cell with a cup of water, listening to some psychopath in the next room frothing and foaming about the end of the world. I didn’t know how long I was in there, but after awhile the crazy guy was starting to make some sense. Then I was escorted from the holding cell and into a room without a view, and a bald guy with glasses gestured for me to sit down. A desk with a bunch of weird images on them was in front of me. So I sat down on one of those metal chairs, you know the ones that dig into your back and got ready to speak. But the bald guy, who’s sitting on the other side of the desk…in a comfier chair I may add, puts his finger to his lips…shushing me, and then proceeds to just stare at me.

Now I considered myself to be fairly good at staring contests. I might even suggest I had a bit of an ego about it. But this guy was tough. I took him lightly at first, but then the seconds ticked by, and I could literally hear them ticking by from this big wall mounted clock. One of those big suckers that you would see in a community swimming pool…

TICK

TICK

TICK

So I’m staring at this guy and he’s not blinking, but then I start getting nervous and thinking about that crazy guy, and maybe he became crazy because this bald guy made him insane by staring at him for so long…

I didn’t know what was going on, but I could feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead and then I felt my eyes getting fogged up like I was getting faint. I thought I was going down. That I was going to blink at any moment. His eyes seemed to drill right into my head…probing me. And then he suddenly broke out into a big grin, blinks…and then starts shooting the shit with me like we were long lost buddies reunited…

“How are you? You feeling okay? You look a little flushed? There’s a great little take out place next door. I can get Ralph to grab us a couple of won ton soups with some jasmine tea if you like?”

Jesus Christ, was this guy nuts!?! Even though I’d won the staring contest I felt woozy and wet like I’d danced with a car wash…without a car. My t-shirt was drenched, and my crotch moist.

“Just some more water please.” My words croaked out.

“Do you know why you’re here, Chase?”

“Cause I was driving too fast?”

“I’m afraid not. No. It’s something a little more serious. It seems as if you are a little delusional. Perhaps having a psychotic episode.”

Now, I had been reading a bunch of Kafka over the summer and this seemed straight out of the pages…unreal…fucking surreal! The guy tells me his name is Kurt Sumner or Kirk something or other. I don’t know, I was suffering from hearing loss at that point. He starts feeding me shit like he’s my friend and that he was there to help me. Please…. and then he starts handing me those weird ink drawings and asks me to tell him what I saw.

The first one he shows me looked like a rainbow but with no colour.

“A black and white rainbow?”

“I see.”

Then he shows me another one that looks like a black cloud.

“A black cloud?”

“Interesting.”

He shows me one more that looked kinda like a sun or a kid with a big head.

“A sun?”

“Fascinating.”

All the while he’s writing furiously. Just getting a bunch of stuff down. And I’m thinking to myself how much I want to go home. Eat a hot dog. Drink some root beer. See if a baseball game is on. Go to sleep and then wake up and pretend this didn’t happen. But then after he’s written whatever he needed to write, he just clicked his pen shut. Closed his notebook. Gathered up the drawings. Bid me good day. And left.

This time I knew exactly how long I was in the room thanks to the giant clock TICK, TICK, TICKING away. 8 minutes and 49 seconds to be exact. And then the door opened and a cop, possibly this Ralph guy, came in and took me into the main office area where they handed me a phone. I called up Virginia, cause there was no fucking way I was getting my grandparents involved…and she just laughed and said “she’d be right over.”

So I went through all that bullshit and in the end I got 2 pieces of paper. One was a speeding ticket for a hundred and thirty bucks and another was a prescription for some kind of anti-depressant pills…what a friggin joke! To top it all off, as I’m leaving the station, the cop who pulled me over came over to me and tossled my hair…can you believe that!?! Didn’t even say anything…just gave my hair a tossle!

At the time the whole “ta-doo” didn’t tickle my funny bone. But the next day I saw a little humour in it, and the day after that I thought it was pretty hilarious.

Here’s what I did with the papers…I chucked out the prescription even though the experimental part of me wanted to be a guinea pig for awhile and paid the speeding ticket with a small loan from Virginia.

By the third day after the ordeal…I woke up in my bed and to my horror saw that I had turned into a giant beetle and screamed!!!

INDIGO

Around that same time my mom got out of jail…great! So I went to pick her up. We hugged. She cried. And then I brought her back home. To my grandparents home that is. I should also mention that they were my grandparents on my dad’s side. They also blamed my mom for the fact that my dad got heavily into Buddhism when they were together and he lost his mind. He’s currently a Buddhist monk in a monastery that also fronts as a home for mentally ill adults. I  know how my grandparents felt, but he seemed happy there. I mean, every time I went over for a visit, he had a blissed out smile on his face and his eyes were all teared up with joy. In my mind, he’s in a good place, but my grandparents didn’t see it like that. They were on some hardcore Catholic shit. My grandmother never talked about my mom too much while she was in jail. But sometimes I’d hear her muttering under her breath about my mom, and then she’d kiss the cross on her necklace and look toward the heavens.

So we’re all sitting there in my grandparents‘ sitting room that nobody used, except when they had some company over. You know, the couch, would have this scotch guard coating on it, to protect it against spills. The white carpet looked as if you could eat off of it. A bunch of knick knacks were scattered here and there. Porcelain figurines and plates with the queen’s face on them. I mean, it felt like a museum in there, and the most bullshit thing about it was that everybody put on these airs when they were sitting there like they were royalty or some shit!

So the four of us were sitting there politely munching on cheese and crackers. Grapes and pate. Small cups of orange pekoe tea…so far so good, but the conversation was sweaty armpit uncomfortable. Not much to say really. I mean, what kind of conversation could we really sink our teeth into anyways?

“So Martha, why don’t you tell us some of those interesting jail stories that you must have?”

“Well Gwen, I’d love to…I have a few, but my favourite one would be the time when a couple of butch bull dykes hog tied me down and dildo fucked me in my dead eye socket!”

“Oh dear! How interesting indeed. Now wasn’t that a funny story Dan?”

“Why yes…yes…very funny…more crackers anyone?”

That would be a corker wouldn’t it? Speaking of which…not crackers or corks, but dead eye sockets. I hadn’t noticed at first, but my mom had a new eye! A glass eye…which she thrilled us all by taking it out and showing us. What a fun party trick! I laughed but my grandparents turned pale and started choking on their pate!

I felt for my mom…I did. Just out of jail. No money. Nowhere to go. Stranded in enemy territory. I tried my best to lighten the mood. But I was a quiet kid, and not the best of raconteurs, so most of my material fell flat. After a half hour of such fascinating topics covered like the weather, bridge, high school, the neighbourhood gossip, my grandfather’s work, and how delicious the orange block of cheese was, the visit came thankfully…to an end. My mom was allowed to stay until she found a new place, and we got cracking on that right away. Classifieds in the paper were yellow hi-lighted and calls were made.

I drove her around to places in my car, but the rental market was tight, especially for an ex-con, short of funds.

We eventually found a room available in a house located in the university district. It wasn’t ideal that was for sure. She had to share it with a bunch of freshman party animals. A 38 year old single mom sharing a kitchen and a bathroom with 3 single nineteen year olds on their own for the first time and who think drinking and smoking dope should be extra credit courses?

I don’t want to crap on them too much. They were nice enough, but I didn’t have too much in common with them. My mom didn’t mind cause it was better than a jail cell, and better than at my grandparents’ house. More than anything it was a fresh start…a new lease on life.

I’d pop over once in awhile…eat some macaroni and cheese that my mom cooked up in a hot pot in her room. Get reacquainted with one another. My mom soon picked up a job as a supermarket cashier. It was cool. But I had my own life going on by then. The chasing rainbows gig, and the fact that I felt I I was on the verge of a major breakthrough took up most of my time.

I did some research and found out that Ontario was a major rainbow hotbed. Perfect and frequent conditions were to be had. But I was gridlocked. Literally gridlocked. On days that looked promising I’d hop in “Roy” and go hunting. I had just named my car “Roy” which stood for red, orange, and yellow, 3/7ths of the colours that comprised a rainbow. A good name by anyone’s standards I think? So I’d jump in the car and drive around. But it would be frustrating, cause I’d see a rainbow off in the distance and begin to make my way towards it and then find myself in a massive traffic jam…eating exhaust. Didn’t matter what time of day it was either. I’d be sitting there twiddling my thumbs and of course 9 times out of 10 I’d have to take the biggest piss ever. Squirming and sweating up a storm. Cursing and spazzing out…wishing to whoever was listening that I would be able to relieve myself soon…to have my piss come out in a rainbow arc stream.

I don’t know. I thought I was on the verge of a major breakthrough, but maybe I was on the verge of a major breakdown. I needed to be done with school. Move out to the country. Speed down some back country roads in hot pursuit of my destiny. But what would I do for work? I was a city kid. And come on, was I really going to drop out of school to chase rainbows for a living? I’d be sharing a room with my dad if people got wind of that cracker jack idea.

I just needed to simmer down. Ride things out. Do some art therapy. And that’s when I started to get heavily into water colours. Man did that put me at ease. I’d water colour these beautiful scenes, with rainbows, with animals and rainbows…even some darker stuff with dead people and rainbows, when I was feeling melancholy. I’m not saying I was an award winning water colour artist by any stretch…but it helped me. And at the very least it brought a lot of colour into my room.

VIOLET

A few months later, during the winter I found myself browsing through the video section at my local library. You see, I’d been pondering my life once again, and trying to figure out what I would do after high school. I thought maybe I’d become a documentary filmmaker of some sort. Actually Virginia had put the idea into my head. We were talking one day last year about our favourite movies. Which directors and actors we liked. A lot of times I’d go over to her place and we’d watch a movie or two. I still had a video camera that Sandy had given to me, and she thought I should dust it off and start filming the rainbows I chased. At first I wasn’t too into it. And then I figured I would use it as a way of keeping a video record of the rainbows that I saw. Then it started to become a video journal with me in it. I’d put the camera on the dashboard or hold it in my hand, pointing it at myself. I’d blab away about this and that. The serious scientific research I was doing, and adding some personal flavour here and there. I’d even begun to edit what I shot, and then throw some episodes onto VHS copies. I sent one out to Owl in Saskatchewan, gave one to Virginia and my mom. Used one for a class assignment even. People seemed to enjoy them and I began to like doing them, so I kept making more.

So all that’s to say was that I was becoming more interested in the craft of making a film. So I’d rent a bunch of movies from the video store or go borrow some from the library.

On that day in particular I came across a movie called “Niagara” starring Marilyn Monroe. I wasn’t a big fan of hers but the picture on the back had a rainbow coming out of Niagara Falls.

Hmmmm…a random coincidence perhaps? Or something more? So I took it back home and watched it in my room. And there she was, not Marilyn, but a nice beautiful rainbow coming out of the falls. I began to get tingly inside. My rainbow sense was kicking in…pointing the way to Niagara Falls, Ontario.

I called up Virginia and my mom to see if they wanted to go on an outing…a road trip, and they both wanted to come.

The day that we went was a beautiful sunny day. That’s all I needed. The sun. The falls would provide the water.

We grabbed a quick bite at the hot dog stand and then went and got our tickets for “THE MAID OF THE MIST” boat ride, which would take us right up close to the falls…as advertised!

I was anxious. Excited. I would be right there. Both sides of the rainbow at my fingertips. The boat pushed off and we went up onto the deck with our yellow rain suits on.

The falls were roaring. My hands gripped the side rail in anticipation. And there…through the mist it came. In all its glory! A full 7 coloured rainbow! Perfect. I pointed to the one end that was going through the falls. I knew they had a walkway that allowed you to go behind the falls. So I thought that as soon as the boat touched land, I’d run behind and find my pot of gold. I looked up and followed the arc of the rainbow to see where the other side landed. Mist in my eyes, like tears of joy. I followed it down, down, down…

That’s strange I thought, it ended on something yellow that was floating in the water.

Then I heard someone scream. Then other people started screaming.

Then I heard myself screaming. Where the rainbow had come to an end…and floating in the water…my mom…dead?

NO

I went to jump in. To save her. To hold her. But someone grabbed me and held me.

I stared.

My mom floated.

The rainbow entered into her glass eye.

Dead.

I stumbled inside to the boat’s washroom and locked the door. I looked in the mirror and saw a pale, white ghost. On the outside I felt white, but on the inside I felt black.

That was the beginning when I started to only think in black and white.

BLACK AND WHITE

What’s it like thinking in black and white?

Living your life in a black and white world?

Well, it’s actually pretty easy to do. Most people live their lives like that every single day.

You get a job that’s mundane, but takes up most of your day. At home you watch tv that numbs your brain. On the weekends you clean the toilet and do your laundry. Eat at the food court in your local mall. Monday comes and you do it all again. Don’t forget to set your alarm at night, so the next morning when the alarm clock rings, you forget your dreams.

Routine and boredom become your best friends.

After my mom killed herself, I stopped chasing rainbows. I didn’t feel good. I managed to finish high school. I don’t know how, but I did. I sleepwalked through the days and stayed up through the nights. I ate food, but it had no taste. I talked to people, but right after I couldn’t tell you what we talked about.

Owl and I lost touch. He came out to the funeral, and he would send me rainbow stuff from time to time, but I would throw it out, or return it back to sender.

Virginia still tried for awhile. She’d bring over movies. And even if it was a comedy I’d sit and cry. Her dreams came true and she got hired by “National Geographic” to be an assistant to some big wig photographer, that she was supposed to marry. I was invited to her wedding but didn’t go. Last I heard from her she was happy, pregnant and living in England.

My dad escaped and disappeared. They said he was living on the streets and would eventually find his way to a shelter where he’d be recognized. But I never saw him again. Probably walked into a patch of forest and sat under the bodhi tree until he died.

My grandfather died in his sleep one night, but my nana was still alive. Wanted to die, but was hanging on.

I converted the garage into a living space and moved in there with “Roy”. I didn’t go into the main house too much. It reminded me of crackers, cheese, grapes, pate, and orange pekoe tea.

I didn’t like to be reminded.

I’m not sure why I didn’t try and commit suicide. It surprises me that I didn’t even try. The only reason I can guess, was that I was already dead inside. A zombie…a member of the living dead.

People would walk by and smile at me, but I wouldn’t smile back. I’d give them dead stares in return. Not even seeing them, like they were ghosts.

I’d sit on that same bench. The one where I had run to after Virginia had touched me and I felt so painfully alive.

I didn’t like to think about that. I didn’t like to remember. So I would just sit there. Hunched over. A black look in my eyes.

But sometimes late at night when I couldn’t sleep I would remember things. Things that hurt me so much to think about. My mother’s love. Lots of hugs. She seemed so happy when we went to the falls that day. We were laughing and chatting in the van. I remember coming back from the funeral and there was an envelope in the mailbox addressed to me, from my mom. On the front was a peacock sitting on a flowered branch. It’s feathers glittered rainbow bright.

On the inside was a poem by Ernest Dawson:

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter

Love and desire and hate!

I think we have no portion in them after we pass the gate

They are not long the days of wine and roses!

Out of a misty dream our path emerges for awhile,

Then closes within a dream

Love mom xoxo

When did her dreams die? When did her chasing rainbows career come to an end? Maybe when Sandy did, a part of her died and jail did the rest.

I remember her tickling me and chasing me when I was a kid. I remember her singing me to sleep.

“Daisy, daisy, bicycle built for two…I’m half crazy over my love for you.”

I remember the funeral.

The dark clouds…threatening rain.

The black crows on the hydro wire.

The big willow tree, with its branches drooping low.

I remember my mom tying my white shoelaces so that I could go outside to play.

I remember at the funeral looking down at my black laces as they lowered her into the ground.

You ask me what it’s like to think in black and white?

To live your life in black and white?

…

Well, now you know.

PART 2:

MIND OVER MATTER

OR

WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH MY MIND?

SUBHEADING:

THE FINE LINE BETWEEN SANITY AND INSANITY

INVENTION IDEA:

TURNING SAND INTO SANITY

QUERY:

DO WE CREATE CONSCIOUSNESS

OR DOES CONSCIOUSNESS CREATE US?

SURVING THIS LIFE IS FULLY DEPENDENT ON HOW GOOD YOUR MATTRESS IS

Man oh man…you wanna know something? Come here and I’ll tell you a little secret…it sucks being a zombie!!! And let me also add that black and white is over-rated!

I was a zombie for over fifteen years, before I began to thaw out…fifteen years!!!

For the love of a good mattress, that’s way too long.

Fifteen years of a dead man walking, a dead man talking. I mean, it didn’t happen all at once. I didn’t just wake up one day seeing in colour again. It was little things over a period of years.

Like:

Feeling hungry after smelling fresh baked banana bread, made by my grandfather, just out of the oven.

Standing in the middle of an intersection watching a cotton-candied sunset.

Sticking out my tongue and tasting giant white snowflakes that fell from a December sky.

Petting the soft coat of an orange tabby cat’s purring head.

Hearing brown wooden wind chimes floating through the August night, helping me to drift off…to sleep.

The little things began to add up, and I felt my senses beginning to open up. I felt lighter…my breathing less shallow.

One day I decided to walk to work, which was no small walk as it turned out. Why I decided to walk I’m unsure, but it seemed right. Which was strange in itself, as I hadn’t listened to that little voice which lived in my heart for some time. But that morning I listened. I put on my sneakers and put a few things into my backpack and stepped outside. The sun was strong and blew me apart. I came to and put myself together again. Along the way I began whistling an old Jimmy Buffet song. A couple of little girls had set up a cardboard stand. 25 cents and they would paint my face. I fished around and came up with a little more than that, and dropped it in the money jar. The little girls giggled as I sat down in the little persons chair…placed there for customers like me. As I sat there I asked them what their favourite colours were…

“Purple.” One said immediately.

“Yellow.” The other,  with pigtails said.

“What’s yours?” They asked as they painted on my forehead.

It had been awhile since I had thought about that one.

“Let’s see, when I was 5 I liked apples that were green…when I was 7 I remember liking the blue sky…orange sherbet when I was 14…fell in love with plum trees at 21…and then for a long time I liked black and white.”

“Black and white?” One of the little girls squeeked, with a nose scrunch thrown in for good measure. “That’s no fun.”

“You’re right.” I said. “I need a new favourite colour!”

At that moment one of their moms came out of the house and came down to check on them. She smiled at me and her eyes twinkled. A warm golden feeling washed over me.

“Gold…gold is my new favourite colour.” I said to the girls.

“That used to be my favourite colour!” The little girl with pigtails said with big eyes wide eyes.

They finished painting on my face and I waved goodbye.

It suddenly felt great to be alive! Hot diggity dog did it feel good!! It felt like one of those days where everybody you saw was in a good mood. Everyone that passed me by had a big smile.

The world seemed to be opening up to me. Flowers were opening in full bloom. Little gnomes hopped out of their trees and started to walk with me. A butterfly landed on my head and a chipmunk sat on my shoulder.

By the time I got to work I was filled with shits and giggles. I sat down in my cubicle and turned the computer on. I saw someone behind me in the reflection of the monitor…

“Jesus Christ Chase! Where the hell have you been? You’re over an hour late…and…and…what the hell is that on your forehead?”

“On my forehead?...oh…heeheee…on my way here some cute kids painted on me, I don’t even know what they painted”

“It’s a rainbow for fuck sakes! You need to get that off pronto. O’Brien’s coming through with some new clients and if he sees that on your forehead he’s going to think you’ve gone

Hare-fucking-Krishna on us!”

“Maybe I have…I mean…heeheheee…you don’t have any lollipops on ya by any chance? I have this sudden craving”

“Lollipops!?! Get your shit together Gordon or…”

“Or what Paul? You’re gonna give me a wedgie?”

“You have seriously gone mental…oh shit here comes O’Brien! You’re on your own.”

The funny…great thing was that ten minutes later I was fired, and was really on my own!

5 minutes after that I was celebrating in a diner drinking a strawberry milkshake through a straw, and digging into a blueberry pie with a side of vanilla ice cream.

And that was the beginning when I began to think in colours full time again. To live in colours…bathe in colours. I got all tingly inside just thinking about it. I was back! I was lost for a stretch, but now I was back home. After I polished off my treats I ran back home and checked the weather. An afternoon shower was called for. Shit yeah! The day kept getting better.

Time to gear up. Get out of these drab work clothes. Break out the video camera. Put some gas in the car. I patted “Roy” on the hood and told him it was time, time to do some rainbow chasing and this time I meant business. I wouldn’t stop until I had some answers.

I’d seen what was on this side of the rainbow, now it was time to see if the grass was greener on the other side.

SPEND MOST OF MY TIME BOTTLING FLIES AND EATING YAM FRIES…WHAT I MEANT TO SAY WAS…HI, HOW ARE YOU?

A rainbow came to me in a dream.

How do I know it was a dream? Because the rainbow started to speak and said:

“Follow me…”

I mean, even in my dream I was skeptical…and questioning if it was in my best interest to follow a talking rainbow.

But then I was lifted off my feet and dropped softly into a car with no top and pulled to the top of the rainbow. It reminded me of a roller coaster ride. I got to the top and thought:

“Oh, what a nice view.”

…and then the car went plummeting downhill. The funny part was that I noticed someone next to me who wasn’t there before, so I looked over and there was a guy sitting there in a mime outfit, with white paint on his face. He was screaming but no sound was coming out of his mouth, which freaked me out and made me start to scream.

We did a corkscrew and a loopty loop. We went through a tunnel and up and down little rainbow hills. The landscape rushed by and I couldn’t really make anything out. Then the car stopped and the mime waved good-bye.

I was then lifted out by an unseen force and floated towards a big, juicy looking apple tree. But the apples weren’t just one colour, but many different colours.

Underneath the apple tree was a meditating teddy bear hamster sitting on a lotus flower.

Foolishness…absolute highway larceny was at work here. I demanded to wake up. Get my feet back on the ground. I had no time for silly putty like this.

Of course, I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. And do you know what was the real kick in the pants? The bloody hamster seemed to meditate for what felt like an eternity. I had grown a long grey beard before it finally opened up its eyes.

“I sent for you before.”

“I got lost.” I replied with the first thought that entered my mind.

“And now you’re found!” He answered, which made him laugh and skip around the base of the tree. “Hi! My name is mister hamster head, lend me your hand and play with me!”

He reached out and grabbed my hand. I should tell you that mister hamster head had a goofy quality, which made him fun to be with and I began to loosen up by taking his hand and skipping around the tree.

We continued on in this way for a bit. Then we climbed the tree, swung down and started to eat some apples. He gave me a nice red one that tasted like yummy fresh cherries.

“Do you believe this is real?” Mister hamster head said to me with a serious look.

“This…this dream I’m in?” I said with a bit of a scoff.

Suddenly, without warning he lunged at my left arm and bit me. I screamed and woke up in my real bed, huffing and puffing, with a sweaty brow. Man I gotta lay off the tarter sauce I said to myself, then leaned over to click on the bedside light.

“Great googly moogly!!!” I splurted out in astonishment as I saw tiny teeth marks imprinted on my left arm. Things were getting awfully strange.

I got up and pondered things over while eating a rice cracker. I soon felt sleepy again and returned to bed. It didn’t take long before I was lights out again.

Then a hamster came to me in a dream.

“Now do you believe me?” Mister hamster head said, still sitting underneath the apple tree.

Looking down I saw that I was stark naked! Ashamed, I tried to cover up with a leaf that I plucked off the apple tree.

“What a little adam you are.” He said with a giggle.

“And you’re a little munchkin!”

“You’re a juicy peace of watermelon!”

“Well, you’re a…a… a veggie dog!”

“Yum! That makes me hungry,” he said, picking a pinkish apple off the tree and taking a bite out of it. “Good idea about that veggie dog, would you like some?”

“No thank you, I’m still full from that cherry apple.”

After eating the apple/veggie dog down to its core, mister hamster head leaned back and reclined in peace against the tree.

“Why are you chasing rainbows if I may ask?” He asked me.

“To find out what’s on the other side.” I said.

“To find a pot of gold perhaps?

“I don’t necessarily believe in that.”

“Well, what do you believe in?”

“I’ve seen only death on this side, I imagine on the other side might be life.”

“Vampires, witches and bats beware!”

“Now you’re being the silly one. It’s not immortality I seek…anyway, how much do you know then?”

“A tisket, a tasket…a pinch of salt, a dash of pepper.”

“You speak in riddles now.”

“No I speak with my tongue!”

“Can you be serious for a moment.”

“Alas, I can’t help myself…a former comedian in a previous life, I get carried away from time to time. Speaking of time, the sun is coming up in your world and so it’s time for you to leave. But, before you go, take this fortune cookie, but just before you open it, make a wish. I can tell that you mean well Chase, I do wish to meet you again.”

I knew he wasn’t joking so I closed my eyes and wished to see what was on the other side of a rainbow.

I opened my eyes and had once again returned to my bed. I felt something in my hand and when I opened it a fortune cookie lay in my palm. I cracked apart its shell and read the fortune:

BILL, DOUG AND FLUFFY THE CAT

What the heck does that mean?

Well, the crazy thing was that a week later, I met Bill, Doug and Fluffy the cat!

WINDS OF CHANGE CAN MESS UP YOUR HAIR AND MAKE YOU FEEL INSECURE

Bill and Doug were two brothers in their mid-forties, who had special needs. They lived in their own house on the edge of outer suburbia. I would go over a few hours a day, a few days a week and do a little cooking, a bit of cleaning, some socializing. I’d drive them around to their appointments. Help them bathe and do their laundry.

One of their favourite things was to go to Tim Hortons. Well, Doug liked to go. Bill was a recluse and pretty much stayed in the womb of his room. And his room wasn’t much bigger than a womb. I mean, it was small to begin with but you add in the million and one things that were in that room and it became standing room only, which made it uncomfortable to hang out in, which suited Bill just fine. It kinda reminded me of when Sandy, my mom and I lived in the bachelor pad when I was younger, but this place was out of control. He was a pack rat extraordinaire. There were newspapers dating years back, books, radios, stuffed animals, wrestling figures, clothes…all kinds of stuff. He had a few garbage cans but those were always overflowing. It was a disaster zone. But the thing was, you couldn’t touch or clean a thing, or else he would flip out. He didn’t want his room to be neat and tidy. The bottom line was that it was his house and his room and that was that.

Doug wasn’t as fixated on being in his room or in his house for that matter. His bottom line was that he loved hot chocolate and donuts, and the faster he could get his mitts on them the more pig in shit he was. So as soon as I would pull into the driveway, he’d be out of the house wanting to go to Timmy’s. now who am I to deny a man his pleasure, so we’d hop in “Roy” and away we’d go. Doug always carried around a little radio that he listened to 24/7. I’m not sure what it did for him, whether it entertained him or kept him balanced, I don’t know. What I did know was the music that came out of it wasn’t my cup of tea, but it was local, so it gave weather updates every half hour, which helped me to anticipate a rainbow.

A lot of times we’d fly out of the house and go on a wild goose chase, chasing down a rainbow, with me promising Doug a trip to Tim’s at the end. One time I even told Doug that a Tim Hortons was at the end of rainbows and he seemed to like that quite a bit. Gave him a little boost. A dose of enthusiasm. Who’s leg am I pulling? I told him that little white lie one day so I could get him out of the house a little quicker.

They lived out by the edge of suburbia as I said earlier, so I’d tell Doug to crank his radio up and roll down the windows and burn some rubber on those back country roads in hot pursuit!!! Out of the times we went chasing though, we only saw what was on the one side of a rainbow twice. The first one was a dead mouse and the other one was hitting a run down old house.

The messed up thing was that every time Doug would see a rainbow he’d piss in his jogging pants. I didn’t know why he did that. Was it the whole excitement of the chase? Or maybe those hot chocolates really knocked his bladder for a loop. Pissed me off cause it was usually in my car…so I would have to clean it up and then when we got back to his place I’d have to give him a bath and wash his clothes. I brought up the idea of him slipping on a diaper before we headed out, but he told me in a non-verbal way that he wasn’t into it by banging his head against the wall a number of times.

Bill on the other hand would somehow know exactly where rainbows would touch land and without me even telling him that we went out chasing rainbows. I’d come back with his hot chocolate and donut, and he’d tell me if “we saw the rainbow that touched down by highway 6, by the old graveyard?”

“Yeah, I know we were just there, but how did you know that?”

“I don’t know…have you seen Fluffy?”

And then he would go back to watching wrestle mania 53, or whatever number it was at…basically telling me to get out.

Fluffy the cat was Bill’s really fluffy white cat. He was always asking where Fluffy was, or what Fluffy was doing. Fluffy wasn’t usually doing too much other than being a big fluff ball on the downstairs couch, pretending to be a pillow. The only thing that he did which was a bit weird, was when he was doing his business in the kitty litter in the kitchen, he’d finish off his bathroom session by clawing on the wall, this kind of scratched rainbow.

Sometimes when I was there and sweeping the floor outside of Bill’s room I’d hear Bill talking to Fluffy. The door was closed so I couldn’t tell if Fluffy was listening, or what was really going on. I mean, they had a close connection and all, but could cats understand English? Was Fluffy communicating back to Bill in some kind of telepathic way? Is something like that even possible? And what was this other connection with Doug pissing in his pants every time he saw a rainbow? What was going on with that unsolved mystery? And was there a bigger connection to be solved with the combination of Doug peeing his pants, Bill knowing where rainbows landed and Fluffy making a clawed rainbow on the wall outside of his kitty litter?

How the fudge and popcorn was I supposed to figure those questions out? Might as well ask me to find out how the universe was created, or what happens to us after we die?

I mean, there was no doubt about the fact that mister hamster head was bang on about Bill, Doug and Fluffy the cat, that much was for sure. I was a believer on that score. But he was asking a lot of me to put these pieces together. I would’ve asked him some questions on the matter but I hadn’t had a dream of any kind lately, let alone one with a hamster in it. Which was strange because I usually dreamed quite a bit. Loved to dream, I considered them to be free movies starring me. But nothing. No dreams, only black sleep. This tipped me off that I was alone with this riddle to solve. I was up for the challenge though. I just needed to give my head a shake and let the puzzle pieces fall into new places. Stop thinking so linear and take a quantum leap. See the signs. Connect the dots, and trust in my good ol’ intuition.

DOES EMPATHY TASTE LIKE APPLE PIE?

First order of business was to designate this as a quest. Second order of business was to act accordingly. And the third order was to begin collecting the dots.

That’s when I decided to start a part time business called:

THE SUNSHINE KID DETECTIVE AGENCY

And I was to be its only client. Collect the dots and any random thoughts and the answers would fall into place.

My first mission was to go on a cleanse. A three day fast of sorts. Clean out my body and re-energize my mind. After I accomplished that, I felt good…no…I felt GREAT!!! I felt kind of raw in fact, which I needed to be. Wanted to be. I wanted my signals to be open and clear.

I was now ready for a big ol’ quest sandwich that was for sure. So I began to act accordingly. And what better way to act accordingly then to go for a random walk. Take a look around. See what I could find.

So I took a walk down a busy street. The people were walking quickly, heads staring down at their feet. I passed by a pizza place that was empty and for rent. It used to be called “RAINBOW PIZZERIA”. Bingo! My first dot. My first start. I meant business. So I took down the number, went back home and talked to the current owners. They were in a bind and locked into a long term lease. The pizza business wasn’t what it used to be, “not fast enough,” he said to me, if you can believe that!?! So rather than leave it empty they let me rent it for cheap. I wasn’t thinking of using it as a pizzeria, but as my personal private investigation office. And as a bonus, the owners had a bunch of pre-made pizzas frozen in the freezer, so whenever I got hungry I just had to pop one into the oven and bingo!

The next few days I was busy getting the place in shape. You know the deal…heat, hydro, phone, internet. That kind of blah, blah stuff. I repainted the inside with rainbow designs. Changed part of the kitchen into a bedroom cause I figured I’d be working long days and well into the night, so I could just crash there in some comfort.

I changed the sign outside to the “SUNSHINE DETECTIVE AGENCY” with a little sign underneath that read “Not Accepting New Clients at this Time”

Now with the office all set up it was time to hit the streets. I flipped a coin to see what direction to go. Came up heads, which meant I was heading South. Went on my way. Whistling with a bounce in my step. I wasn’t thinking about any setbacks. I felt I was on the right path and I had a positive mental attitude.

The sun was out, matching my own sunny disposition and as I turned the corner I heard this guy asking me “if I was interested in buying some product?

“Excuse me?” I said coming to a stand still.

“Can you spare a few minutes, sir?”

I took a good look at the man. Now, I was used to any number of hustles in the city and ten times out of ten I wasn’t interested. But this guy was different. And not just in the way he looked either, which was a weird costume that combined part clown and part gorilla. But, there was something more to the situation then met the eye. So I lent him my ear.

“Right you are sir. I won’t be a few minutes, because I know this is a busy time of day, a busy time of year, and a busy age when we get right down to it. Busy, busy, busy. But sometimes you gotta have some fun, let your hair down. Am I right or am I right?” He said reaching out and punching my shoulder lightly with one of his gorilla hands.

“You’re right…I mean…” I said getting cut off.

“Let me ask you something, a busy man such as yourself, you have any kids? Silly question, of course you do. A handsome fit man such as yourself with a good job. Of course you do. Now as you know, kids like to have fun, love to have fun. But once we become adults we lose that spark, that fun. Responsibilities start popping up, rents need to be paid. Bills, bills, bills. I know the drill. Next thing you know, poof! You’ve lost your ability to have a good time. And that right there is the tragedy of our times…that loss of fun. But before you shed a tear, before we have a funeral for our good friend “fun”, I’ve got something here that will change your life. A product that not only will change your life but is guaranteed to change your life within 30 days or you’ll get your money back…that is, if you can find me!!” he said laughing and honking on his clown nose. “Just joking…some fun…I’m a bit of a clown if you haven’t already noticed…haha…yes, yes…where were we?”

“I think you were about to sell me something?”

“Sir, sir. Let’s not reduce things to the crassness of money. What I’m about to show you is worth more than you can imagine. You ever dream of being rich? Quitting your job and living the life you’ve always wanted, always dreamed of living? Of course you have. But, sir, just a couple more minutes of your time, I assure you…look into my eyes…”

“I can’t see your eyes, you’re wearing sunglasses.”

“An astute man. Handsome and smart, your wife is a lucky woman.” He said digging into my ribs with his gorilla elbow. “Now no more games sir, no more games. You may be saying to yourself who is this clown with his red clown hair and his red clown nose, not to mention this ridiculous gorilla outfit covering his body. Who is this gorilla clown? Well for starters my name is Brian…Brian Walsh…you may have heard of me through word of mouth, or seen my commercial on television?”

“Ah, no actually I…”

Well it’s on late at night, family man such as yourself, is in bed early I’m sure…the point is that I’m here to bring the fun back into your life, to bring back your dreams, with these…” He took off the black sunglasses he was wearing and handed them over to me. “Try them on…” He whispered.

Unsure of how a pair of sunglasses could change my life I skeptically put them on.

I felt the tingles before I actually saw them. And then I saw them and couldn’t believe my eyes. I quickly took the sunglasses off and stood with my mouth open in shock. “yessss…” Brian Walsh whispered seductively “…you see don’t you?”

I nodded.

“Put them on again and you’ll see more.”

I was beginning to feel hypnotized and Brian Walsh’s face began to change into a snake’s. Its forked shaped tongue wrapped around the words that it spoke.

“Put them on and you’ll ssssee…”

Without knowing, I put the sunglasses back on. A wave of peaceful tranquility washed over me. I saw the insides of people’s bodies. And not just their bones and their organs but what they were made of. Their spiritual matter. Their spiritual bodies. Which wasn’t so much of a body in structure, but a body of colours. The colours of the rainbow. And each person seemed to have a more pronounced colour within that spectrum. More of one colour highlighted above the others, though the other colours were still there but in softer tones. Like one woman I looked at had a strong light blue colour. And a teenage boy had a brighter orange. It was fascinating. Intoxicating. I felt a giddy high that was higher than any drug or adrenaline rush had ever given me. I felt the truth was right there in front of my eyes. But…was it the truth?

“…yes, yes…it’s all true.” I heard the snake coo.

“But was it real though?”

“More real than you can ever imagine.” The tongue swirled.

Or was it nothing more than a con? A street corner hustle? But it felt so good! Soooooo goooood. I could see rainbows for the rest of my life and always feel this good. Rainbows all the time and forever! There was a catch, there had to be. It was too good to be true, like the devil was tempting me. I started to suddenly feel a deep poisonous itch bubbling up inside me. The feeling reminded me of when I had a bad case of poison ivy when I was a kid. The itch seemed to grow and take over the peace within me. I willed myself back into action and took off the sunglasses and handed them back. I felt woozy and mildly nauseous, and had to take a minute to regain my equilibrium. When I was clearheaded again I straightened up and began to walk away.

“Kind sir, you see that I told you no lies. That my product is indeed one of a kind. I can tell by your eyes what you saw. And today is your lucky day. Buy one pair of these miracle sunglasses and I’ll throw in another pair for free! A great deal. And because you’ve given me so much of your precious time I’ll throw in this handy carrying case as well. Alright…you’re wondering, how much is this highway robber going to fleece me for a pair of miracle glasses? How does $19.95 sound to you…a mere pittance, a trifle amount…$19.95 and it’s all yours. What a deal! An incredible offer for something that will change your life right away!

I wasn’t sure I wanted to be involved in this kind of thing so I passed on his offer. I would have to meditate on this. What I saw, what I felt. I needed to contemplate what might very well have simplified my life. If I bought those glasses, would the quest be over? The mystery solved? Something wasn’t sitting right though.

“But it feels ssso good!” The snake whispered in my head.

Yes it did, but then it started to feel bad. The questions floated around me like ghosts as I walked back to the pizzeria. The questions, the questions. No…not questions plural. Rather, the questioned remained…

Were people made of rainbows?

LATE NIGHT TALK SHOWS GIVE ME A GOOD REASON TO STAY UP LATE AND JUSTIFY MY MOODINESS THE NEXT DAY

“Have you lost your fucking mind!?!” Owl had written in his last email to me.

We’d just reconnected through one of those social networking sites on the internet and were communicating every few days or so. I’d caught him up on all the chasing rainbow episodes that had happened since we lost contact and he likewise did the same. The funny thing was that he had become a prison guard for a little while, just as I had jokingly predicted, but he got stabbed in the arm during a prison riot, which helped to wake him up and get him back in touch with his true calling. Now he worked for the David Suzuki foundation, hugging as many trees as possible. A joke of course, but not too far off the mark as he did spend a lot of time in the forests of British Columbia making sure forestry companies were being good little boys and girls to the environment.

But his point was a valid one, had I in fact lost my mind? I mean, by all appearances it looked that way. Any stranger that walked into the “Sunshine Kid Detective Agency” would see someone that was obsessed with rainbows. They would see the walls covered with drawings, photographs, road maps, lists, and theories. I also had a giant blackboard, that I had scored while dumpster diving behind a school, and the black board was covered with chalky mathematical equations, trying to decipher…it all looked a tad obsessive, I’ll agree to that charge. But I wasn’t coocoo, I was just doing something that might look a little coocoo.

So, after further review I hadn’t lost my mind, but I hadn’t found what I was looking for either. I knew there was something on the other side of a rainbow but I was no closer to finding it now, than I was before I talked to mister hamster head in my dream many weeks ago. I mean, what if there wasn’t anything? What if there were only a couple of leprechauns laughing at me?

Christ, I was getting down on myself here. Losing confidence in the operation. Insecurity and doubt crept in. What I needed was a pick-me-up. So I went across the street to the pub for a beer. Took a few sips, then took my notebook out of my back pocket, and began to review some of the dots I’d recently picked up to see if I could connect anything.

July 6^th - walked into a thrift store, flipped through the record bin and came across a Pink Floyd album with a rainbow coming out of a prism on the album cover. Nothing out of the ordinary happened when I held it. My rainbow sense didn’t kick in.

July 8^th - got a craving for a banana nut muffin, so I went into the health food place next door. When I picked up the muffins off the shelf, the plastic case that they were contained in reflected a tiny rainbow. No feelings felt, other than a growling stomach.

July 9^th - went into a comic book store and came across a “Fantastic Four” comic book that had a holographic rainbow cover.  Again not much occurred, other than getting addicted to reading comics again.

July 12^th - ordered the “rainbow salad” at a local eatery. It had red tomatoes; orange slices; yellow banana; green sprouts; blueberries; an indigo coloured carrot; and a violet eggplant. A fruit salad that tasted fresh and good. Hit the spot where there was a hole in my stomach and filled it in. No new signs to be had though.

July 16^th - walked past a gas station and a rainbow appeared in a patch of oil. I stood there for a chunk of time to see if anything would happen. But nothing did, other than looking like I was casing the joint out.

July 17^th - on the bus I was on, a little girl had a pair of rainbow shoelaces on. I wanted to ask her if she had any information that she was supposed to pass on to me. But her mom was sitting with her and I would’ve been branded as some sort of pedophile and tossed off the bus, so I didn’t say anything.

There she be. Found a bunch of rainbow related objects but no further signs presented themselves. No new paths to follow. The only consistent thing was the fact that my rainbow senses didn’t kick in, even though I was seeing lots of different types of rainbows. I’m not sure what that meant, but wondered if it related to my not seeing a rainbow in the sky for quite some time. The well had run dry it seemed. Maybe it was game over and that’s what the signs were trying to tell me…hmmm…I closed my notebook and finished off the rest of my beer. “Poker night” was about to start and the place was beginning to fill up, so I got out of there, and walked back to the pizzeria.

I woke the next morning remembering a dream in which I was running in a fast race. Except the lanes were separated by colours. The colours of the rainbow of course. Interesting to note as well, was that there was no start or finish line, and the rainbow track was in a full circle. So there was me and six others, who I didn’t know nor could I make out there faces, running with everything we had like we were at the Olympics. Except we kept running around and around, as if we were in a hamster wheel. But what happened if you stopped? Well, then it seemed you disappeared! I was running on the inside red lane. Running hard and fast. I felt like I could run forever. I felt no cramps, no sweat, no fatigue. I felt great! But then I began to think about the race and what I was doing there? What was the point of it? Then I began to wonder what was on the outside of the rainbow track and then I wondered what was on or in the hole of the inside of the circle. That’s when I stopped to look and that’s when I woke up.

Now any amateur dream analyst could come to a few conclusions as to what the dream signified to me. For instance, maybe I was running in circles trying to find some kind of significance in rainbows that I probably would never figure out. Or even needed to figure out. The dream also suggested that I was pushing myself too hard, that I was making a competition out of chasing rainbows. I was over thinking, over analyzing the whole business. My expectations were too high. Too caught up in the details of it all and not seeing the bigger picture. Almost like running in a hamster wheel.

Then I thought of mister hamster head. Strange, but I suddenly felt the urge to go to a pet shop and buy a hamster.

A strange notion that got me out of bed. I walked over to the window at the front of the pizzeria and opened up the blinds. The sun shone through. Go to the pet store and buy a hamster? What a silly thought indeed…but it was exactly what I had to do.

PROPHETS BEFORE PROFITS

I biked down to the local pet shop. The sky was grey and a light drizzle fell on the shell of my blue windbreaker. After double locking my bike to a rack out front I walked through the sliding doors that opened for me and went into the store. It had been some time since I had been in a pet store and was blown away at the progress made in the benefit of our little buddies.

Growing up I had a whole bunch of pets. Turtles, gerbils, budgies, dog, ten cats, goldfish. I also remember creating elaborate schemes in my room with my pets and my toys together. My imagination would run wild. I’d invent landscapes made up of pillows and bed sheets, clothes and lego pieces…whatever I could find I’d work it into the story as well. Turtles were pretty easy to involve, cats a little harder. I remember vividly a story I made up called “Into the Valley of the Rainbow Eaters.” The rainbow eaters in this case were my stuffed animals. Even more fun was going into my grandparents’ back yard and utilizing the trees, bushes, the sandbox…making rock cliffs and caves.

All of those memories came flooding into me as I stood in the dog food aisle. I remembered that my mom used to buy basic dog food. Now there was no such thing as basic. Upon reading some of the packaging I came to the conclusion that a lot of dogs were probably eating better than a lot of humans were. I mean, organic salmon jerky dog snacks! I was almost ready to tear into those bad boys for myself! There was the food, and then there were the toys, holy macaroni! I wasn’t sure who the toys were made for…the pets or the pet owners? I imagined myself in place of a dog playing with some of this stuff. Forget about the pets, let’s buy these toys for humans. Every Saturday night maybe have a get together and play with the latest pet toys. After…eat some pet food!?! Sounds like a pretty fun Saturday night, donut?

So there I was, walking around the store, all wide eyed like a kid in never-never land. Taking in the sights. Marveling at the wonders. I approached the back of the store where all the dogs, cats, birds, fish, rodents, reptiles, lived. I was looking through the windows of each pet compartment when I saw him standing and staring at me.

Mister hamster head!

What took you so long?

Are you talking to me without speaking?

It seems that way doesn’t it?

That’s crazy talk!

Actually it would be quite normal if the human species wasn’t such a closed book.

I stepped back and looked around me to see if anyone was playing a joke on me. A prank like I was on television or something. But, nobody was in the vicinity. I peered back down at this brown and white teddy bear hamster that looked exactly like the hamster called mister hamster head. The one that came to me in my dream.

C’mon…there was no way this was the same hamster, and there was no way he was talking to me non-verbally.

Okay Chase, I’ll prove it to you.

You know my name?

We met, you silly head…under the apple tree? We danced around…ate yummy apples…I gave you a couple of clues to help you out with your rainbow chasing. How is that going by the way?

It gave me more questions than answers.

Such is the path.

I’m beginning to understand that better. Wait…this can’t be happening. I’m dreaming this.

I’ll prove this is real, just as I proved that you were in a dream before. Tell me to do something and I’ll do it.

Ummm, go and run in your hamster wheel.

The hamster dropped down to all fours and scuttled over to the wheel and began to run around.

Go and drink some water.

The hamster got out of the wheel and went and took some sips of water from the bottle.

Eat a sunflower seed from your food dish.

The hamster went over and dug in its dish until it found a sunflower seed and then started to eat it.

How many fingers am I holding up?

Four.

What am I doing right now?

Sticking out your tongue.

You really are mister hamster head!!! 

I sure am, and it’s a pleasure to see you again, Chase.

How did you get here? Onto earth? This pet shop?

I can explain all that later, but you’re going to attract attention to yourself soon.

I gotta get you out of there! I’ll find someone who works here…I’ll be right back.

I immediately went looking for an employee to help me out. It was unbelievable…mister hamster head in the flesh! I spotted a lady that looked like she worked there and walked over to her.

Excuse me.

Her back was turned to me and didn’t turn around at the sound of my voice.

Hi there, I was wondering if you could help me out?

Nothing.

Helloooo!!!

Boy, she was really deaf. And then it hit me. She wasn’t deaf, I just wasn’t talking out loud…I was still talking in my head!

“Excuse me?” I said out loud this time. She turned around and my mouth dropped open as I stared at her chest.

“AHH…can I help you with anything sir, other than my breasts?”

It was incredible, she had a tattoo of a rainbow, which came over her right shoulder and disappeared down in between her breasts. I started to feel tingly. My rainbow sense kicking in mixed with something else. The tingles were so strong I almost passed out in a wave of tranquility.

“…ummm…I…ahhh…well…” I stood there guffawing looking from the rainbow to her blue eyes, then from her eyes back down to the rainbow. First mister hamster head appearing and now this! I needed to get it together and figure out what in the blazes was going on. “…ummm…yes I would like…that is…my friend mister hamster head…over there…I mean, he told me…haha…he told me?…that’s funny isn’t it, a hamster speaking to me?

“So, you’d like to buy a hamster then?”

“Yes, yes I definitely would.”

“I can help you with that.”

I followed her to the other side of the store, where I showed her mister hamster head.

“That’s mister hamster head?” She said pointing at him.

“Ahhh, yeah…funny name isn’t it?”

“Just a little. You’re going to like this little guy. I’ve grown attached to him myself. It almost seemed as if he was trying to tell me things.”

“I think I know what you mean.”

“Just wait here and I’ll go and get him for you.”

She disappeared to the back and reappeared a few minutes later with mister hamster head in a small box with air holes in it.

“There you are sir, do you have a home for it or can I help you with that also?”

“I…yes…I mean, no I don’t have a phone…I mean home…I mean, I have a home and a phone…he doesn’t have a home…or a phone for that matter…what I meant to say was…yes if you could help me!”

“You’re an funny guy.”

“I am?” Feeling my cheeks get warm.

“My name is Indigo…I’ll help you, follow me.”

And I followed her. What I didn’t know at the time, was that I would end up following her for the rest of my life!

ZERO POINTS FOR TRYING, BUT BONUS POINTS FOR TRYING TO RIDE A SHEEP BAREBACK

“Are you going back to the pet store again?” mister hamster head said to me.

“Yeah, I’m just going to pick up some more food for you.” I said slipping on my jacket.

“Chase, have you noticed the amount of hamster food over there? If you’re planning on the world ending anytime soon, that’s one thing, but I think we’re good on the food….as much as I love the hamster mix special and all.”

“I…I’ll pick up a few more chew toys then.”

“Do I detect a twinkle in your eye?”

“Must be the sun’s reflection.”

“You‘re inside right now.”

“Then you must be seeing things.”

“I could be, or it could be the effect that your new friend Indigo…is having on you.”

“Don’t be silly, she’s just a friend. An acquaintance. Anyway, I don’t even know if she’s working today…I won’t be long.”

I closed the pizzeria door behind me and put on my sunglasses, so nobody else would be able to detect a twinkle in my eye and wonder why. I wonder if she is working today? Who am I kidding…I know for a fact she’s working today…Monday, Wednesday, Saturday…9-6 on those days, with breaks at ll and 4...lunch at 12:30. Shit, I wasn’t stalking her if that’s what you’re thinking. I just…just nothing…I liked her and that’s that and today I’m asking her out…it has long been decided. But when I was halfway there I realized I was wearing different pants, blue jeans in fact. I never wear blue jeans. I usually only wear brown cords. Why was I wearing blue jeans? I don’t know how I even look in blue jeans! They suddenly felt too baggy. I felt like a teenager with a skateboard. What if Indigo thinks I look like a skateboarding teenager and doesn’t want to go out with me? Christ, I don’t feel confident with this mission now. I feel hot and sweaty. Fuck, I’m gonna stink. There’s no way my natural deodorant can handle this. Great! I’m gonna look like I just came from skateboarding, all baggy and stinky! I need some herbal tea to calm me down. A straight shot of chamomile, with a chaser of valerian. I’m getting dizzy. I need to sit down.

Spotting a bus shelter with a bench, I went and plopped myself down for a few minutes to try and regain my composure. What I needed was a mantra. Positive reinforcements.

I closed my eyes. Took a deep breath. I put my hands in my pocket and felt a piece of paper touch my right hand. I pulled the paper out. It was a message from a tea bag, tea tab. It said:

Empty yourself

And let the

Universe fill you

That sounded like what I needed. I could use that. I closed my eyes again. Breathing in and out. Slowly emptying my mind. Focusing on my in and out breath. The sun peaked under the bus shelter and yellow rays of light filled my solar plexus. I began to feel my neuroses slipping away. My feelings of inferiority disappearing. With each out breath I began to feel more confident, optimistic. A smile fell upon my lips. I opened my eyes. Alert. Aware. I got up and made my way to the pet store. I floated through the door without touching the floor. I knew intuitively that she would be in aisle 2. I found her there, organizing cat toys. Her hair was pulled back and she looked beautiful. She looked up as I approached and as I began to speak, she put her finger to her mouth not allowing me to speak and motioned for me to follow her.

We went to the back of the store, through a door, behind a bunch of dog food crates. I took her hand and asked her on a date. She said yes, with a kiss on my lips.

Out of my heart poured the colour green wrapping us in loving heart streams.

I felt out of body. I felt as one.

Empty yourself

And let the

Universe fill you

I had done just that and found that the universe was filled with love. The universe was made of love. Earth was made with love. Humans were made of love. I was love. I was in love.

We separated and she wrote her number down. We made a date for later that week. It would be the first of many dates she would not keep, but, that’s the future. At that time, in that moment I knew what the universe was made of. I knew what I was made of . Funny, but all those years chasing rainbows and I hadn’t solved a thing. But with one kiss I had all the answers I needed.

I floated back home, didn’t wash my mouth and hardly slept for the rest of that week. And every time mister hamster head looked at me, he just laughed. But I didn’t care. I was proud of that twinkle in my eye now. In fact, I told him “that the twinkle in my eye, wasn’t just a twinkle in my eye…it was love personified.”

She had a tattoo of a rainbow, which started at the small of her back…curving up and over her right shoulder…then went down, in between her breasts…through her navel and ended where the pubic hair to her vagina began. She called it the “journey to heaven.” I didn’t disagree and when people ask me to this day where chasing rainbows has taken me…

The same night I lost my virginity, I lost the need to chase rainbows.

A new path emerged before me. Family man. Backyard barbeques. Picking the kids up from school. And as I lay on Indigo’s bed staring at the ceiling, future thoughts like these were introduced.

The same night I lost my virginity, I told her that I loved her.

“And I suppose if I were to suddenly disappear one day, you’d chase me like a rainbow?”

“Why would you want to disappear?” I said holding her tighter than ever before.

“Because I’m a ghost…a friendly ghost, but a ghost nevertheless…BOO!!!” She tickled me and then laughed in a cackling kind of way.

“Don’t you want to have kids?” I asked. Feeling unsure of her answer, I began to pick my lips. Was this to be another case of chasing something, someone, that would lead me to fool’s gold…lead me to nowhere and everywhere at the same time? More questions, less answers.

Indigo didn’t answer my question…she didn’t have to. She closed her eyes and snuggled into my chest.

As she slept I watched her breath. Her body fell into a soft rhythm. I looked at each part of her body and face in detail, so I could remember…when she wasn’t there.

I wanted to love so badly. I wanted to love her so much.

I fell asleep at the same time dawn began to break. When I woke up Indigo was gone.

A note she behind told me that “she loved me too and that she would see me after work.”

I didn’t know at the time that seeing me later would be almost two months later, and in another part of the country. But, that’s how the dice rolls sometimes. The dice rolls, and how it lands is out of your control. But, when the dice stops rolling and the numbers come up, that’s when it’s your turn. It’s your turn to take what you got and play the game.

PART 3:

GHOSTBUSTERS

QUERY:

DO GHOSTS REALLY EXIST, AND IF SO WOULD THAT KNOWLEDGE CHANGE THE WAY YOU LIVE YOUR DAY TO DAY LIFE?

INVENTION:

SHOOTING GHOSTS WITH A TYPE OF RAY GUN THAT MADE THEM INTO MATTER AND THEN USING AMERICAN INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES TO GET THEM TO TELL US EVERYTHING THEY KNOW ABOUT THE AFTERLIFE

PISCES

It was the summer of my 36^th year, and I was at a crossroads. The girl I was in love with had left the city and according to her boss at the pet store, was fruit picking in the Okanagan Valley of southern British Columbia.

I didn’t know what to do. Staying and chasing rainbows again seemed silly now in hindsight. A kids game in a grown up body. Mister hamster head told me to follow the colours of my heart. What the heck, I mean, if I could chase rainbows for so long, I could chase a girl that I loved for just as long. It seemed worth it. She told me she loved me. I had it on paper…evidence…physical proof. True, she never looked into my eyes and told me, but it was better than nothing.

A decision was made. I would chase her. The “Sunshine Kid Detective Agency” was about to hit the road…a missing persons case. I figured to be gone awhile, so I gave my notice at the pizzeria…boxed all my chasing rainbow stuff and put it in the back of my grandparents’ garage. I told Bill and Doug that I was going to look for the woman I loved and they cheered me on. Doug even pissed his joggers for old times sake!

Mister hamster head was coming with me as a detective in the case. He still remembered her scent. We loaded up the car for a trip out west. I was nervous on the morning of take off, but I was determined. The look in my eyes could tell no lies. With a “hi ho silver away!” we peeled out of town. Well, we left during rush hour so it was more like a slow crawl out of town…but when we got to the outskirts I took one last look back, wondering if I would ever be back.

Seven days later we were in British Columbia. We had made it! The car made it…sort of. Halfway through the prairies the radiator started acting up so I had to jerry rig it with an “Earl Grey” tin can, and it seemed to hold. Well, it was holding up as long as we pulled over every hour or when the temperature gauge was nearing the red line.

My back was killing me from sleeping in the car so many nights. Many a time did I wish I was as small as mister hamster head. I mean, he could just climb into his little hamster house whenever he was tired. Being little seemed to be the way to go. Maybe humans could start evolving to becoming smaller. Then we could make smaller things. Like smaller cities and smaller cars, which would cut down on the damage we do to the earth. Hmmm…

I was pondering over these and other important matters when I noticed that the car was beginning to heat up so we turned off the highway and into a tree-filled rest stop. As soon as mister hamster head scampered out, he caught a scent of her.

“She was here 7 days ago.” He said wiggling his whiskers in the wind and inspecting the ground around a picnic table.

“Any idea which direction she went?” I asked scratching my weak-old beard.

“No clue, but it smells like she wasn’t alone.”

“Hmmm, maybe we should go to a few towns in the area and sniff around, grab a bite to eat…MISTER HAMSTER HEAD! EAGLE ATTACK! LOOK OUT!!!

A screaming eagle flew out of the trees, rushing towards mister hamster head who quickly darted into an empty slurpee cup. The eagle screeched away empty handed. Mister hamster head poked his head out.

“Safe and sound out there, Chase?”

“Man, that was close! We have to be careful around here. Remember we are not in the city anymore!”

“Understood. Let’s get out of here.”

Mister hamster head zipped under the car, chewed a hole in the floor and came up safely onto the passenger car seat, and proceeded to clean himself very vigorously.

I climbed in and began to turn the key to start the car when a question came to me…

“Hey mister hamster head, I was just wondering…what if you had died there? What if that eagle had grabbed you and then fed you like sushi to its kids?”

“You’d be on your own then.”

“But, you’d come back right? I mean, I’d just go to a pet store in the next town, and you’d be there, correct?”

“It’s not as easy as it seems.”

“Why? You came to me in a dream and then you came to me in real physical life. That seemed pretty quick.”

“It seemed so.”

“And why the heck are you a hamster when I think about it? Why aren’t you a human or even a talking dog?”

“What if I told you hamsters created the world you are living in?”

“Yeah right!!!”

“That steering wheel you’re holding…a friend of mine made that.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Chase, you’ve been hanging out with a talking hamster who you first met in your dreams, and you’re telling me I’m the crazy one?”

“Maybe I am crazy then, maybe this is just a crazy dream.”

“Maybe. But, what if what I’m telling you is the truth?”

“Okay, okay. Enough, enough! Forget I even asked. I got enough questions to deal with in this lifetime already!”

“You asked.”

“And now I’m asking you to forget about it!”

“No problem. I’m going to take a poop and then have a little nap. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about me.”

“You’re not mad at me, are you?”

“NO! I mean, I’m fine. I’m just a little grumpy from sleeping with a seatbelt in my back…I’ll be fine…go have your hamster nap and I’ll wake you when I get into the next town.”

Mister hamster head crawled into the backseat and into his hamster habitat. For the love of all that’s good and tasty…hamsters creating this world? And everything in it? I thought I had my hands full with what was on the other side of a rainbow!

I started the car up and scanned through some radio stations. A baseball game came in clear. Good I needed something mindless for a bit. I wonder if a friend of his created baseball or this radio station, this radio, this car…there must be a lot of hamsters in space then. Chase! Get your head back in the game, you have a case to solve, remember?

Oh, right.

Memories of the kiss came flooding back to me. I touched my lips. Okay, which way did Indigo leave from here…intuitively I let my mind go blank…

Space

…the first thought that came up was my mom’s left eye…so I turned my signal on the car and turned left…

AQUARIUS

A LESSON IN QUANTUM PHYSICS…WHEN TIME JUMPS AND EVENTS CHANGE QUICKLY…FOR EXAMPLE:

Two days later the car had broken down for good and mister hamster head and I were standing in the middle of nowhere trying to thumb a ride.

The radiator looked like someone had shot it with bullet holes, and no amount of “Earl Grey” tin cans could salvage things. Oh “Roy”…rest in peace my friend…we had some good times didn’t we? A silent prayer for a dead car…what’s next?

Well, the day before, we were in a Canadian Tire in some small town, and while we were browsing in the camping section, I struck up a conversation with a dreadlocked guy, and he told me that he remembered seeing a girl matching my description with a rainbow tattoo, traveling around in a converted school bus, and they were calling themselves “The Astral Travelers.” Now from what I gathered, it was some sort of traveling circus…but I couldn’t get too much out of the guy cause it looked like his astral was doing some traveling on its own. He didn’t know where they were headed, but he figured they were going to be on the planet earth awhile longer.

BACK TO THE PRESENT MOMENT…BUT NOTHING IS REALLY PRESENT IS IT?…I DO LIKE TO GET PRESENTS ON MY BIRTHDAY THOUGH…

“We’ve got to find her!” I said hitting the steering wheel of the dead car, which woke mister hamster head up.

“It seems like you feel the need to save her Chase?” Mister hamster head said with a yawn as he crawled up onto my shoulder.

“I do…I mean, she belongs to me…I mean, I love her.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way Chase, but maybe it wasn’t meant to be.”

“How so?”

“Well, maybe you had your time together and it was special when it happened, but now it’s gone.”

“It’s still special.”

“It looks from the outside as if you’re chasing rainbows again, but this time you’re chasing after a woman?”

“And if looks could kill…” I said shooting daggers out of the corner of my eye at mister hamster head, who dodged them and then hid in the pocket of my red flannel shirt.

“You’re so touchy these days.” He muffled.

“The moon is in Aries.” I said sticking my thumb out the window of the car as a truck roared by without stopping. “Asshole!”

“Well, what’s the plan then?”

“I don’t have one, I’m trying to trust in my intuition and hope that it guides me.”

“Not if your mind’s all clouded with dark clouds and lightning it won’t.”

“You know what mister hamster head…”

“Chase…I didn’t…”

“…you’re absolutely right.” I said with a deep sigh.

“Chase…”

“No, you know what? I’ve been really fucked up in my head lately. I don’t know, I just feel tight. I feel raw. Like I have no skin and I’m just feeling everything times a million when it touches me. I can’t get Indigo out of my head. And you’re right about me and Indigo. Maybe it was just a fling for her, but I took it way too seriously, and now I’m on some kind of wild goose chase trying to find her. Or maybe it’s not even her I’m trying to find, maybe what I’m trying to find is what she represents. What I felt when I was with her. And it’s just like you said about chasing rainbows…it’s the exact same thing. I get obsessed with these giant questions and go all out trying to find the answers. Maybe the answers are in the questions themselves…I don’t know…I just need to let her go I think.”

“My good friend, you have a good heart and the courage to chase your dreams. You’re too hard on yourself. Most people don’t even attempt to chase anything but a bus because they’re late for work. They just settle and then they wonder why they aren’t happy. I’ve never met anyone who has lived life with such passion and conviction.”

“And look where it has gotten me…on top of a mountain with a broken-down car, and nothing but the residue of my failed dreams.”

“No Chase, you’re wrong about that. You are living your dreams. Yes, you are on top of a mountain with a broken-down car, but that’s okay. It’s okay because this is what happens when you live your dreams…shit happens right?”

“Did a friend of yours make that up?”

“No, a human did…why?”

“Nevermind.”

“The point I’m trying to make Chase, is that stuff happens when you merge your dreams with reality. Your car’s going to break down, your girlfriend is going to leave you. Your life is going to be complicated. Look, your life is never going to be perfect. You signed on the dotted line long ago to take this ride, for better or worse. You’re never going to be happy anyway with a 9-5 job, a white picket fence, a wife, kids, and a dog in the yard.”

“Maybe, I would be happy with that.”

“No you won’t and you know it.”

“It’s just so fucking hard sometimes.”

“It is if you let it. Let go Chase. Let go like you said, and everything will work out how it’s supposed to.”

“I hear what you’re saying and I hear what I’ve been saying…but how do you know?”

“Because I used to be you.”

“You used to be me?”

“I used to be you.”

“Don’t start with this hamsters control or make everything in the world again! Your pep talk was going just fine, I was beginning to feel better…so please don’t go there.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s bullshit, it’s not true!”

“How do you know it’s not true?”

“Because…”

“Because society hasn’t told you, your family didn’t mention it?”

“No…”

“Look into my eyes Chase.” Mister hamster head said hopping onto the steering wheel and looking at me.

“I don’t want to.”

“Chase.”

“It looks like it’s going to rain, we better figure what we’re gonna do.”

“CHASE GORDON! YOU WILL LOOK INTO MY EYES RIGHT NOW!!!”

And you know what?…I looked into his eyes…it was against everything my rational mind was telling me…but something else…something deeper told me to look…and I looked in mister hamster heads’ eyes and what I saw was the most fucked up shit you’ve ever seen! It was so absurd that I won’t even mention it…ever. I mean, you wouldn’t believe me anyway, just like I didn’t believe mister hamster head.

You know what? On second thought, screw it. I’m going to tell you and if you think I’m loony tunes or on acid or a stoner I don’t care. Brace yourself, open your mind as you read these lines for this is what I saw…

I saw an infinite amount of hamsters in the middle of space, all running as fast as they could in their own hamster wheels. The energy created by the motion of their wheels was being captured by a black generator of some kind, that then fed into a huge matrix grid system that was filled with an infinite amount of images. Each grid and each image within it was connected telepathically to each individual hamster. The hamsters eyes glowed as they created everything on the planet earth, from toothbrushes to kitty litter…from laptop computers to orange shoe laces…and yes, even humans…I saw mister hamster head running in his wheel and I saw the image he was connected to…the image he was creating…and that image…was me!!!

I blinked and crashed back into reality. My mouth dropped open and letters and words fell out…

“What…who…how…fuuuuuck…”

And then I had to do what I always have to do when anything out of the ordinary happens or stressful happens…I had to take a big, giant piss!

Out of the car and into the forest I ran, and stood behind a tree to pee. As I was relieving myself, I looked at the trees and the leaves, the rocks, and insects.

“Chase…are you…” Mister hamster head said scampering to a breathless halt by my piss stream.

“Yeah I’m fine…that was really intense and then I had to take a piss.” I said finishing up and zipping back up…while reaching out and touching the tree in front of me.

“Oh good, I thought you were running away from me and what you saw.”

“I’m tired of running…mister hamster head what happens when you stop running in your hamster wheel?”

“I’m afraid you die then Chase.”

“Everything dies in a way on this earth, doesn’t it?”

“If you look at it that way, everything does die in the end. Some live longer, some shorter.”

“Rainbows, pens…but what happens when you stop running?”

“I create something else.”

“Is something making you do it?”

“No one is making us do anything.”

“So you do it for fun?”

“In a way.”

“And someone creates you then?”

“Yes.”

“And when they stop running, you die?”

“Die isn’t the word we use, but in a way…yes.”

“It doesn’t make any kind of sense to me. I mean, if you are here on earth with me right now, that means you aren’t running, which means you aren’t creating me, which means I should be dead right now.”

“How do you know you aren’t dead, Chase?”

“Because I just took a piss. Because when I hit the steering wheel earlier I felt pain in my hand. Because I lost my love and felt the pain of that in my heart.”

“But how much do you know about being dead?”

“The afterlife you mean?”

“Yes.” Mister hamster head said, crawling up the tree and sitting on a tree branch eye level in front of me.

I looked up at the clouds which were getting real black, looking pregnant and ready to burst with rain any minute.

“I don’t know, I guess when we die we just die and that’s that, or we turn into a rainbow that connects with the spirit realm…or…well, that’s what I thought happened when things died.”

“Like when your mom and Sandy died, and you saw the rainbows coming out of them, you thought that maybe that was a bridge to the spirit world?”

“Yeah.”

“Interesting.”

“Am I right?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re some kind of talking, metaphysical, astral traveling hamster that creates things on earth…including people…including me! You have to know.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m down here Chase, because I don’t know either. I’m a seeker just like you are. We’re consciously evolving ourselves, and for what? I don’t know yet. I might have come from a higher plane than this earth realm, but it doesn’t mean I have that many more insights than you. It’s not like a god came and called us into a room for a big meeting and filled us in on all the big mysteries.”

“You still haven’t told me why I’m still alive?”

“Look, I asked a friend of mine to fill in for me. He was making music for this punk band and felt that they weren‘t going anywhere. So in reality, all that happened was they stopped making music. No big deal…I needed a break anyway. I’ve been running your life for awhile now.”

“So, you are me and I’m you and now we’re both here together on this planet trying to figure this shit out?”

“Like brothers from a different mother.”

“Yeah…right…anyway, this is going to take awhile for this to settle. When we get out of here to wherever that ends up being, I’m going to need a bubble bath and take a minute to think on things.”

“You’re not trying to ditch me are you, Chase?”

“And then have you chasing me like a rainbow! I don’t think so…that sounds like the makings of some stalker horror movie…”My Pet Hamster Tried To Kill Me”…I think we both need a break on chasing things for awhile.”

“Settle.”

“No, not settle, but…I don’t know…let’s get back to the car before we both get hit by some hamster engineered lightning!”

Running back to the car with mister hamster head, everything turned to slow motion. My senses fell open and I perceived the environment in a different way than I had before. The colours more vivid, the sounds of life more clear…rain started to fall down my face like tear drops.

I could sense the connection, the oneness of the earth and myself within that oneness. With my 3^rd eye open I saw the limits of the senses on this earth and then saw the limitless break through out of earth and into universal space. I knew mister hamster head was me and I him. And I also knew that no matter what, that I was made of the cosmic matter of love, and that everything would be okay.

Speeding up, I raced mister hamster head back to the car and when I got there, I was met by a queer sight under the hood of my car…a man with wild long hair and a long beard was tinkering with the engine. What was even more mind boggling was the cloak he was wearing. It had all the colours of the rainbow on it, but the colours weren’t static. They were swirling…moving it seemed…blending and mixing. I stopped dead in my tracks and just stared. He must’ve heard my arrival for he quickly came up out of the hood and gave me a hearty hello.

“Hello friend! It seems as if you are in need of some assistance perhaps?”

“I…ahh…yes?” And then there was something in the eyes that I recognized. Something old and dear. The man stopped and stared at me with the same glimmer it seemed. I took away his beard and his long hair and could not believe my eyes…OWL!

“OWL!?!?”

“CHASE!?!”

We moved closer and examined one another to be sure, and things became sure enough…when Owl broke out into a hearty laugh that I recognized instantly from the past.

“Well, of all places for a reunion!”

“My oldest and dearest friend…”

“We meet again!”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m the driver of “The Astral Travelers” a traveling rainbow circus.”

“You’re kidding me?”

“I’m not, the bus is across the road there.”

Owl pointed the way, and I saw the bus. I hadn’t noticed it before, possibly due to the fact it was painted with swirls of forest green, but there it was.

“Your car looks pretty rough, Chase. I can give you a ride to wherever you want to go. We have no fixed schedule.”

“Yeah, that would be great, thanks…let me just grab my backpack.”

Owl closed the car hood and ran back over to his bus as the rain continued to fall. I ducked into the car and grabbed my backpack and put mister hamster head into the pocket of my yellow rain jacket I had just put on.

“I told you everything would be okay.” Mister hamster head said.

“I should listen to you, to me…whatever we are…more often.” I said with a smile breaking out, for the first time in awhile.

I shut the car door gently and walked over to the waiting bus. When I climbed aboard I heard a loud cheer…people of all styles and colours came and shook my hand and hugged me with big smiles of welcome. It was like I had been friends with all these people, but in different lifetimes, in different parts of space.

I moved through the crowd to the back of the bus looking for an empty seat. The Astral Travelers parted like Moses and the Red sea and there before me was…

…no fucking way!

…I mean, “no fucking way” wasn’t before me, but…but…I rubbed my eyes to be sure…and sure enough, there before me with a big wide grin on her face was Indigo!”

I began to feel all tingly inside.

“It took you long enough to chase me down!” She said laughing.

And then she got up and we kissed and everything turned a sea of green…everything turned to bliss.

With my head on cloud nine, I sat down next to her.

“Are you just happy to see me or is that a hamster in your pocket?” she said looking down at mister hamster head poking his little head out.

“My brother…my friend…me…I mean…” I fumbled and mumbled, unable to begin to articulate what happened to me since we parted.

“Hmmmm…sounds like this could take awhile…” she said grabbing my hand and holding it. “But we have awhile…”

I couldn’t help it but I started to laugh and cry at the same time…big huge crocodile tears came flooding out, along with rolling thunder belly laughs…this was something out of this world!

A great chorus of  “oooohs” and “ahhhs” suddenly broke out in the bus which I thought at first was directed at Indigo and me but, instead the Astral Travelers were all huddled at the front window looking out.

“Let’s take a look!” Indigo said taking my hand and guiding me to the front.

When we got there and looked, I saw that the clouds had cleared a bit, and a giant rainbow appeared on the road in front of us.

“Where are we…going?” My mind cleared up enough to inquire.

“To the other side of that rainbow my friend.” Owl said, starting the bus up and closing the door with a lever.

His coat of many colours began to swirl in anticipation.

“And what do you think we’ll see on the other side?” I asked, and then instantly wondered if I really needed to know the answer.

“Who knows, maybe nothing but space…and if that’s the case we’ll just chase a shooting star for awhile and see where that goes…or check out a black hole to see what’s going on in those things…when we get there we can all see, and then we’ll decide.” Owl replied as he stepped on the gas pedal.

I squeezed Indigo’s hand and watched as we approached the rainbow…my mind went blank and when I looked down at my body it was a swirl of colours…and then I saw mister hamster head which was kinda funny…he was surfing on the waves of the colour streams and waved at me. Then I looked at Indigo and she was in a twirl of colours as well. Everyone was. And it felt good, it felt real good….

And to this day, when people ask me where chasing rainbows has taken me, I tell them this story.

This story is dedicated to anyone that chases rainbows…chases their dreams for a living and doesn’t settle for anything less.

THE PHOTOCOPIED VERSION

I ORIGINALLY HAND TYPED CHASING RAINBOWS ON A MANUAL REMINGTON TYPEWRITER

ALTERNATE COVERS

CHASING RAINBOWS
POSTER GALLERY

CHASING RAINBOWS ON TOUR!

CHASING RAINBOWS FOR REAL!

MADE IN WINLAW

OHME MADE BOOKS