the northern lights

I have this dream where we're playing foosball in Alaska.

When I wake up, I'm always in Ohio.

So I get up and grab my bike and ride down to the lake and watch the sunrise.

--

There was a flood back home a few years ago, and it left everything pretty wet. Water everywhere. I think it's the water that finally made you leave. Most of your stuff was ruined, so it seemed like the right time, and we all agreed that you hadn't planned on living in that basement room forever. Anyway, you decided to leave. Thought you might go to Alaska, you said. We said that sounded pretty good.

--

So, you left. And did you get to Alaska? That's our question.

I guess we all figure that we'll hear about it when you get back.

Maybe you went to Brazil or El Dorado.

I guess I don't know where you are, just that you're not here.

--

“Hey, you know if they have foosball in Alaska?”
“Yeah.”
“Really?
“Yeah, they do. They have it there.”
“I thought maybe they did. That's good, that's good.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty great.”

--

Whenever I think of Alaska, I think of the Northern Lights. I'm not even sure if you can see the Northern Lights from Alaska. Is that Alaska or Iceland? Maybe it's both. Greenland, maybe? No, no, no, I think it's Alaska. Yes, it's Alaska, because David always laughed about that Eskimo legend, the one where the coloured streaks in the air are the spirits of the dead playing football with a walrus skull across the sky. For some reason, I can never remember why they're playing with that walrus's head, though. Anyway, David calls the Northern Lights "aurora borealis," and talks about spirits and walrus-head footballs.

I think about the dawn and the North Wind and you.
Bryan thinks about the energy source of the solar wind flowing past the earth in such and such a fashion and with such and such an effect.
Even though he's blind, I wonder if our friend Peter has any thoughts on the Northern Lights.
Probably not.

--

The thing is, anyone of us could be right, I guess. About the Northern Lights, I mean. None of us has ever seen them. But if you're under those lights right now, staring up at them somewhere in Alaska, and if you're looking at them real closely, then maybe you know. But maybe not, maybe not. Maybe you never went to Alaska or you have your eyes closed or you're sleeping or you're in Africa or Istanbul or Cleveland. I don't know. I do like to think about you looking at them, though.

--