The Adventures of Billy and Bravo

As I began adjusting the radio dial located in the perimeter of my right frontal lobe to a
more receptive station, there was some static and a minimal amount of distortion, but not
enough to generate on. Another click on the fine-tuning dial proved to be successful, for
suddenly there was a break in the cloud cover. As pictures began to form from shadows,
I found myself pandering in the unkempt solace of waning distractions. A lusory image
of a baby boy patting a beach ball on an empty and desolate shore had materialized.



Rapidly, and without warning the ball took to the sky
like a helium balloon, and I followed swiftly behind it.

Like a meteor preparing to burn out, I rocketed skyward until
something was seen moving ever so serenely across the horizon.
I honed in on it and prepared to initiate contact. As it entered my
field of vision, I let the invisible air current carry me up to it.

An aeroplane glides by with a hum and onlookers look up.

Hat brims shield the eyes from a scorching sun.
The pilot waves to the crowd below and smiles,
but no one sees his face, for he is in a dream.



As I hover above the cockpit, I can now see a three-dimensional image of the control
panel, and a partial glimpse of our navigator enjoying the view. The pin up girl on the
side of the aircraft has a stunning appearance, and is delicately holding a glass of pale
champagne. Her legs are folded in a provocative manner, thus implying a motive.

Without hesitation, she raises her glass to me and grins, before taking a sip
of the sparkling intoxicant. Then with lips pursed and eyes closed, she gives
me an adoring kiss before returning to her original position.



As Venus comes into alignment with Mercury, the sun reflected upon the two planets causes
the paint to flake off, until there is no design left upon the aircraft at all. At this point, my
incendiary shell is burned up in the troposphere, and I am no longer a shooting star, but
the air itself. Cascading through the ripples of a wind-blown sea, to the very breath of man.

Pages from a calendar blow off one by one, and fall like leaves to the ground.
Finally, the wind ceases and the whistle blows. It's Friday, 1953, and the city
is overflowing with joy. The sun is now perfectly in tune with the movement
of the passing plane, and as the clock becomes drowsy above the automat,
it slows to an abrupt halt. It was at this very moment that the die was cast.

                                                                              Pg 15
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The umbrage released from the resilient bird with an iron clad body was
one that provided relief from a blistering heat wave, now in its seventh day.
This darkened the faces in awe, as it covered the ground in a geometric and
dilatory manner. An applause rang out in the street where women cried.
Men cheered and threw their hats to heaven.

The laudation continued. . . That was until the sun shifted.



If we run fast enough, thought Billy to his fearless dog Bravo, we can bask in
its shade, so off they went. Tiny feet pattered to the rhythm of a drum roll that
appeared to be coming from the attic above my room. “There he goes,” said a
black man in his mid-twenties smiling. He had been carefully documenting the
quality of the air with x/y to the 4th power on a medium sized notepad. “I jus'
love to see that little dog run,” proclaimed Jasper with glee. He then tipped
his yellow hat to the fine-looking critter before turning to watch smoke rings
being blown from a billboard advertisement encouraging youths to smoke.



                       As they came forth into the air, they linked to form a billowing
            chain that stretched far into the earth's atmosphere. In the small province
                  of Beggar's Field China, the links dangle to the ground where they
                     are broken off and eaten by some of the world's poorest people.
                                 They had a name for it, it was called Mu Gaw.



                   I saw a beautiful Asian woman as white as a pearl and thought,
                   he who condemns imagination is like a child forbidden to play.
                      A lover unable to touch. A guide who has just lost his way.  



Soon the dog ran out of steam and was panting. It was difficult for the tiny pug to
scoot more than a few blocks without suffering the burden caused by such intense
heat. The little fellow had pushed himself too hard and was now fatigued and exhausted.
He struggled to catch his breath, for it seemed he had exceeded his limit. By a public
school, he stopped and was looking at several tall cans filled with coal ashes. As the
drops of wasted energy fell to the sidewalk, they landed on small but thick circles
of violet glass used in the gaslight era to reflect light into the school's basement.



Gazing into the violet prism, he saw a defeated image of himself in the diminutive pool
of water that sparkled for a moment and then died. As the shimmering heat emanated
up from the streets surface only inches away, Bravo knew he could go no further. It was
here, he collapsed and sprawled out on the walkway. Through moist eyes filled with
sadness, he watched his friend succeeding from a distance. Only three feet away stood
a bone-dry, jet-black fire hydrant, and I wanted nothing more than for that hydrant
to turn on, but it simply could not, and so the little dog closed his eyes forever.

                                                                              Pg 16
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Billy looked back at his pal with a sad smile, before noticing an abandoned building
had crumbled. Because of this building which stood no more. A building that had been
reduced to a pile of bricks in a concaved heap of white plaster rubble, stood the adjoining
structure of yet another dwelling. Through all this debris and mayhem, the facade was
unscathed. On the veneer of its exposed wall revealed one's artistic ability in the form
of an iconographic image. A remnant of a bygone era had been laid bare.

The hundred-year-old advertisement painted on the red brick exterior wall was
untouched by the hands of time. In black, white, and bright green animated letters read,
J.D. Voorghont's carriage assembly and repair shop with a depiction of a young man
standing beside his work. Off to the side were five of his workers. Each one holding a
different tool. Together they proudly sported their handlebar moustaches, yet no one
smiled. To the right were the tools of his trade neatly coordinated on a pristine green
and black setting. Tools that would be considered by today's standards, prehistoric.



Billy wondered what happened to the timely gentleman standing
in the huge painting that now divided the two worlds?

He lived his life out as we all do, and then he was no more.

"That world and its citizens are all but a vapor now," thought Billy, before bolting toward
the calm apparition which could be seen gracefully hovering over a two-block radius
far off, in the distance. The smell of asphalt rising on a freshly paved street and coal
tar creosote applied to dry and splintered telephone poles at adjacent bus stops were
all scents of the city, he had come to know and love. Sweat poured from his body
lifting him clean out of his shoes. As the adumbration washed over the bridge, he
bounded for it. Never knowing, all the while he'd been drawn into make believe by
an artist's loving hand. Never knowing that once the TV is turned off, so is he.

As the ceiling tiles gradually came back into focus, the television set that
was on in a lonely corner of my mind grew dim and slowly vanished.

How amusing, I thought. . .

Somewhere in the recesses of our minds.
The serene quarters where daydreams thrive.
Only in a place reserved for paragons so dear,
could it have acquired such a captivating charm.
As I reflect in absence, an era lost in time.

         The Storybook People - Do You Believe

                                                                              Pg 17
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Inkpop reviews for chapter 4

~DreamChaser~ - W.O.W. thats amazing! i think you should have a more seriouse name,
because this is really good! i love how descriptive it is, it's always good to use bigger
more discriptive words, it really drawed me in, great job! goin on my watch list!


xoxokelseyxoxo - absolutly amazing =) i loved it. ur images are so
clear and crisp its almost like you are there. =) i really love the ending


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PG 15) The Human Condition by Ilene Meyer - http://www.ilenemeyer.com/

PG 15) Low cost airlines by Jacek Yerka - http://www.yerkaland.com/

PG 15) Fifties pin up by Francisco Rivera - http://tinyurl.com/nvte9j3

PG 16) Chapeau Mossant poster by Leonetto Cappiello - http://www.cappiello.fr/anglais/

PG 16) Times Square billboard from a bygone age - http://forgotten-ny.com/

PG 16) New York World's Fair - General Cigar Hall of Magic

PG 16) Death looking into the window of one dying by Jaroslav Panuška - http://tinyurl.com/nsnjtzk

PG 16) Violet glass prisms - http://tinyurl.com/qez8uq6

PG 17) The Selwyn Theater on 42nd St. NYC - http://www.frankjump.com/

PG 17) National Narcissist 2045 by Charles Wish - http://www.charleswish.com/