Confused, I walk across the enormous 'Magic Kingdom' to my ultimate fear. Space mountain.
We are on the other side of the park in 'Frontierland' and I can see it, emerging from behind Cinderella's castle. Look at that monstrosity it's at least 10 stories high. Whatever is enclosed in that massive outer shell is obviously going to kill me.
How the hell did Wesam say 'c'mon pif' and bang I'm on my way to the death chamber. Just like that. He could get me to play russian roulette. fucking hell. I'm walking spanish over here. I look up again Though we are still probably a Kilometer away from it's base, it's massive hulking mass is very intimidating. My brain is racing with excuses, I'm trying them out and none of them'll fit. Shit. I'm cornered like a rat.
We get to the base of Space Mountain. The line up is like nothing I've ever seen, we've walked by it now for about 2 and a half minutes. And we just got to the entrance of the building. We start our ascent up Mount Doom. There's three of us. I guess that makes me gollum, great. We know what happens to gollum. I wonder which of these two is Frodo, probably Wesam. Definitely Wesam he just got that huge engagement ring for Sonia, that's the ring of power alright, so that makes Kelly Sam Wise. Alright, so now I know before I jump I have to bite off Wesams finger and watch for Kelly, she'll try to stop me. Ok, got it.
There's ominous space music playing. 'Alien' Landscapes to our right through portholes. Photos of nebulas and asteriods. I guess this is a space station thing. The line of eternal boredom that started about 1200 feet ago continues to my left. So Many People. Like Lambs to the slaughter, I think to myself. Wait a Minute I'm a lamb! I'm the Fast Tracked Lamb. Early to rise early to Die. Early bird gets the Death. All these space images... Walt you wily old fucker you did it again, but I know what your up to. I'm on to you. We climb up this steep ramp forever, well at least ten minutes. I look at the indifferent faces of the damned as I pass them by. I feel screaming 'We're ALL GONNA DIE!!" but I'd probably get arrested for terrorism.
Me: I'm going to scream the whole way like a little girl. You know that.
Wesam: (laughing) Oh, you know it.
Ok, that didn't help.
We finally make it to the front of the line. Our three seater missile of idiocy arrives. We step in. It locks us down. We sit there for several months as my hands sweat, my mouth dries out and my bladder pulsates. Wow. I'm really locked in good. shit. They really didn't lock me in to the last one. I wonder if that's a legal thing, or there just doing it to scare me, cause I really don't need any help. I think I can feel my hair turning white.
Wesam turns around smiling and gives me the thumbs up. It might as well have been the Devil himself. The moment he turns back the happy Disney employee pulls a giant lever like the one in Eraserhead and we start to roll. My stomach starts to jump around threatening to empty it's contents at any moment. We turn the corner and drop. I yelp. My stomach is very very unhappy with me. We stop for seemingly no reason. Hey that wasn't too bad.
Wesam: Not so bad hey buddy? You just wait.
We go into a giant tube with lights shooting past and they are counting down and it's REALLY REALLY Lame. Oh my god. I was scared of this?! We accelerate at an even pace as we head off the 'Launch pad.' Lame lame lame. This is so late fifties I could puke. Jesus. Splash Mountain could take this loser ride APART. We 'speed' toward the end of the tunnel with the count down increasing in volume and the pulsating lights flashing till I'm nearly having a seizure. lame. truely lame.
When we turn the corner. I start to scream and I don't stop for five minutes. Not like before, worse. Louder. Uncontrollably. So hysterically. Now like a bat but a panicked ancient bat, who knows only fear.
When turned the corner we fell into utter darkness. That's how it stayed. For about 5 minutes of sustained terror. My mind went into a test pattern. Green screen of death. A system freeze, the mac bomb, followed by a hard re-boot to my unicellular ancestors. It was a fear that transcended time, transcended my species, my genetic make up. It went back behind the world wars, behind the discovery of bronze, before horses, before meteors wiped out the dinosaurs, before I had a spine, or anyone else. It was as primal as any fight for survival, as the first fight for survival. I was in the original living nightmare.
And locked in to that seat. I had only one way to express myself, to scream and boy did I scream.
All the facilities I relied on for my survival were taken from me. It was pitch black I was blind as a bat (fitting) My legs were locked into Apollo 13 over here and my hands, this time, were both freaking out. They had nothing to hold on to, they were lost to me, they had become like my ancestral tentacles of my great grandfather jelly fish, the were on there own. It was every cell for itself at this point.
The screaming continued. I tried to stop it. I couldn't. It stopped for a moment as I took a deep breath, I tried to hold it back but it started up right away, there was nothing I could do, it was hysterical. So embarrassingly and utterly beyond my control.
My mouth was wider then ever, my eyes were the size of saucers. With every turn, shake and dip into the nothingness my stomach tensed tighter and then tighter. My testicles ran hid behind my kidneys. What a picture to send home. How was Disney World 'the happiest place on earth'? And there is the picture of me, arms flailing, mouth agape, eyes wide, nutless, looking deep into my own mortality, rationality lost to the world. A being of pure fear. Oh, it was great.
Wesam and Kelly were also hysterical, but with laughter. They we laughing so loud, hard and long that every time I took a breath I could hear them laughing as uncontrollably as my screaming, at my screaming.
I'm so glad I didn't sit in the front. Thank you god for small favours.
When I got off. I was smiling, laughing, purified, twice in one day, an experience beyond reckoning. Something bigger, more emotional then anything if experienced in this lifetime. My body so pleased to be alive, so sure that it was going to be torn to pieces by wolves, or sharks or a bigger meaner super amoeba. nothing doing. Here I stand renewed twice in one day, I'm sure 50 percent of my blood was adrenaline and my stomach will never fully recover, but whatever.
The happiest man alive is the one shot at and missed.
Today's Song of the Day is "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin from "BBC Sessions" recorded in 1969.
Crazy Fact: I screamed louder and longer that this. I was unbelievable.
njoy
2 comments:
There was a time when I really enjoyed rides like that. I think I even was on that ride 17 years or so ago when my witless clan visited Disneyland. But my last roller adventure was on some rickety old thing on Coney Island. You know, that place in New York that never closes down, it just kind of falls down. I remember looking at a massive old ride who's pole was still standing, but the arms that held the screaming people...fell off? Were taken off? Anyway, it's nice to have a condemned ride in one's line of sight when getting on a rickety old coaster. I was looking forward to it. Me, Jim the clown, and a girl or two...
Anyway, I didn't scream, maybe I should have. Really it was very traumatic. Forget darkness, I could see everything. Every bit of rust. Every hanging wanting-to-decapitate-me beam. The coaster shook like it was flying on some kind of greased up gravel road. My hands were white gripping the bar that was really not-convincingly holding me in my seat.
I didn't scream. But I clenched my teeth so hard I think I damaged them. In fact my dentist did later ask me if I had a lot of stress at work or something... They really ought to give you a wooden stick or something to chew on like they do when they saw off your leg without anaesthetic, don't you agree?
Also, I seem to remember a story about a certain man who was shot at and pretty much missed... I mean pretty lightly wounded... a cut on the little finger, as I recall. That's got to be the best kind of bullet wound, one that only requires a band-aid. ANYWAY, I don't recall him being too happy about it. In fact I recollect him being very jumpy, and crawling under the seat of my car when we drove past the area where the unfortunate incident occurred. Yes, I would say the glass was definitely half-empty for that poor fellow, he was much less grateful that the projectile had not struck him in the head or face (his wounded hand was holding a cell-phone at the time), and much more disappointed with the whole idea of being shot at.
Yeah--- I think getting shot at really sucks actually. Still, getting missed is, at least, preferable. I suspect it's not as thrilling as your ride, but here's a toast to simulated and safe near-death-experiences!
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