Lulu’s Loose Screw

One of the very first dreams I remember having was a bird’s-eye view descending from up in the clouds. The closer I got to the ground, the more the clouds dissipated. And there was a carnival waiting, underneath the fog.    Bird’s-eye View                                                                     Clouds. Descending into clouds, foggy clouds. Gray Clouds  in background frozen light. Floating deeper down, flying through black and white. Clouds break apart closer to the ground. There  the air is still cloudy. Ahead there is a clearing, a soft spot of sun. Early morning sun, shinning on a carousel,  and a Ferris wheel shouting out a salutation. A soaring wind from a sudden flap of wings shifts the breeze, cheeping in the distance. Carnival colors blink awake, and wipe away the clouds.  

This is new. Images of sunken ships scare me.   When I was a little girl I remember being fascinated by pictures of the remains of the Titanic. After the movie came out, where I was first introduced to the tragic wreck, I spent weeks looking up images of the submersion.    Imagine the ship, surrounded by a dark dense oceanic water, the rails and floors of the decaying boat dried with a dripping icicle of rust.   I was   taking baths around the time, because let us face it, baths may be slightly disgusting because of the whole soaking in your own filth thing, but they are just so darn relaxing.   I had always loved swimming when I was a kid so the tub was the closest thing to a pool when I was at home in my apartment. I would sink my head under the water, blowing bubbles out of my nose.   And the image in my closed lids, which usually projected a somehow familiar tiled-floor—somewhere I still cannot place—became the image of that dynamic ship underwater. A repetitious image o