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| Cherubs and Car Keys, Portland, Oregon © Doug Hickok (Velvia Slide Film) ... I wandered in a city of blue. I felt lost and bewildered as I journeyed through a labyrinth of concrete and brick. I was like the allegorical traveler in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress searching for truth and meaning in a strange world. Then I looked-up and saw angels... cherubs like those in a Raphael painting. They began shooting arrows at me... not arrows of love... but car keys. I was quickly impaled by what seemed like hundreds of keys. Yet I felt no pain. I felt only delight... as though I was the ecstatic subject of a Bernini sculpture. As I became a pin cushion of keys, lovely ultra-luxury cars began appearing all around me. I plucked a key off of me, I tried it in the nearest car. It fit perfectly. "The car", you may ask, "what was it?" A bright red Maserati! Yes! No kidding! I took the sleek machine for a spin around the block, feeling the wind in my hair and a rush of excitement in my toes. I tried keys in other cars too. They all fit! Ode to Joy! Say no more! Say no more! I drove Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Rolls Royces, Bugattis, Bentleys, Aston Martins (which came with martinis shaken, not stirred), a fire truck, a bakery truck (ummm, pastries!), and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.... the list went on and on. But my wonderful dream quickly turned Kafkaesque as I found myself metamorphosed into a Saturday Night Live Killer Bee, crammed inside a 1970's Ford Pinto. Alas, such stuff as dreams are made... Lucky you. All of this surreal absurdity simply because of a photo I made years ago in Portland, which inspired this Borges-like ficciones. |