So we float down The River Styx on our long, deep voyage into the accurséd bowels of 'Splash Mountain' (what a deceptive name 'Mountain of Inhuman Terror' is more like it.) It's dark, but they lull you into a feeling of safety with bier rabbit and bier wolf and the gang playing their banjos, chewing their hick grass with creepy animatronic repetition.
We burst into bright sun light and drop off the edge of a cliff. I Scream spontaneously. The fear grips me a squeezes out a Scream. Nothing you can do about it. We hit the bottom with a splash and a jet of water.
Fuck. What a bunch of pansies. That was nothing. Fuck! They looked scared as hell. It looked so much bigger from the other side. I relax and lean back. That was a short ride. I feel a little ripped off, by in the end I'm pleased that I didn't puke, die or embarrass myself.
I float by the disney characters getting their animantronic selves into all kinds of wacky situations. We leisurely float into another dark tunnel that goes black as pitch and drops into oblivion. The fear takes hold again and my mind melts into a blind panic. There is no thought. Only a sustained, high pitched scream. We splash to a halt in the darkness.
My higher functions are returned to me as Primal Fear Pif recedes back into his pre-cambrian cave. The first thought that comes to me is 'Well that was a little embarrassing' and then comes the spontaneous laughter, we are all laughing and I think to myself. Shit this ride isn't over yet.
Yet more happy but tortured disney animals on this journey though the abyss. Look at them, ghosts of a story some poor farmer or slave told another 100s of years ago, while struggling in toil through hot southern summers, twisted by Disney into a dollar bill. It's really bizarre, this is a haunted house.
The only words I remember from the whole 'ride', which now I'm sure is short for 'hell-ride' is 'Let's see if we can find your laughing place.' This is spoken by Two vultures with black top-hats perched in front of a gravestone. They said it in that 'squeal like a pig, boy' sort of voice, while being lit from below. It was ominous and frightening. It foreboded a great calamity as we and our little floating death log was carried up and up and up a giant conveyor belt. Evil voices Laughing, surrounding us from all sides. Flashing demonic eyes appearing in the darkness. Suddenly a burst of light and we are high above the park I can see clear to the ocean. The view is breathtaking.
Then we drop.
Fear takes hold and squeezes. As the log of safety lurches forward, fear grips harder. The point of balance shifts suddenly. Since all the weight is distributed to the front, I am launched forward out of the seat. Terror adds a another firm grip. Two hands of fear squeezing the rationality out me. One was really enough. My stomach tightens. My legs straighten, worsening my situation. As the full weight is pulled down the infinite drop ahead of me, my ass is up in the air desperate to be attached to the seat. I became aware of my screaming at this point, I think it's had been going on for some time. I am sure of my death at this point. With all my fears and resulting supernatural strength I try to pull my ass down into my log coffin. The speed and acceleration are nearly unbearable. My mind is numb. My senses are on fire. My legs are strong with a primal survival instinct to run or jump. Jump is the really worry. My left hand is in total panic. I don't know what it's doing. Its reaching around for something to hold on to, waving around in the air, hitting me in the head... it's gone bye-bye. My right hand is so firmly gripped on to the plastic bar directly in front of me that it hurt for days.
The screaming was incredible. High-pitched, unnatural, definitely not masculine in the least. not even feminine, past feminine, past little boy, past little girl, more like a bat, but louder, much much louder. I think I dropped about 150 feet, though, I felt I was dropped from a plane, and though I aged a year, when we teetered, tipped and careened down down down it probably took only 3 or 4 seconds.
When we splashed to the bottom. I felt lucky to be alive. Laughing and exuberant. Like the kids in Star Wars when the trash-compactor stopped closing in on them.
When I climbed up splash mountain I was just a boy when I got back down, I was a man.
There is something cleansing about that fear. For a moment there was nothing but fear, nothing, no school, no friends, no clothes, no fingers, no ideas only fear. wow.
On our way off the ride another family walks up to us.
Family: Excuse me.
Sonia: Yes, can I help you?
Family: Our little boy is very sick and we have to go.
Sonia: Oh that's terrible, will he be alright?
Family: Oh yes But we have these fast passes and we can't use them.
Sonia: oh really...
Family: Would you like them?
Sonia: oh thank you, very much.
Family: We have four can you use them all?
Sonia: Yes we can.
Family: Have fun.
Sonia: Thanks, I hope he feels better.
Me: Wow, that was nice of them. What are they for?
Sonia looks at them smiles and looks at me with a hungry evil look.
Me: no way.
Sonia: Space Mountain!
Me: uh-uh
Sonia: Yes! It's fate!
Me: Look I'll puke, I will, that's no fun for anyone
Sonia: That's what you said last time.
I pause while I search for my next excuse
Wesam: C'mon, Pif.
Me: Ok.
How did he do that?! Wesam pushed some macho button or something. How did he do that? I'm not macho. Why am I doing this? I don't understand how he did that. It's an old Arabic mind-trick. I don't want to do this. 'C'mon, Pif' worked on me?! What?! This is impossible.
(to be continued...)
Today's Song of the Day is "Free Fallin'" by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers off their 1989 album "Full Moon Fever."
Crazy Fact: MCA wanted to release the 1981 follow-up to record to Damn the Torpedoes, at the list price of $9.98, which was a high price at the time. Petty refused to comply to their wishes, threatening to withhold the album from the label and organizing a fan protest that forced the company to release the record at $8.98. nice.
njoy
No comments:
Post a Comment