Real Life: "Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens" - The Talking Heads

[jack_babalon]

So i'm house sitting in Doraville all this week while my buddy is out of town with his wifey and wee-wah (that's Babalonian for kid btw). It's kinda odd really. The streets are empty of any kind of pedestrain here on Eaglerock Drive. Unlike my own neighborhood back in L5P, there are no shrieking children running around the block, no Soccer Moms playing Ben-Hur Chariot Racer with their strollers, the flocks of joggers slowly trying to outrace their own mortality... hell not even the stray senior drifting up the winding hill at the leisurely speed of a migratory statue. Eaglerock is instead, two parallel strips of no mans land, each of which has been parceled into divisions of lawns for the identical houses that populate the street. There are no sidewalks here. Maybe it's because Eaglerock has all the poetic resonance of a new SUV line (or failing that one of those horrible Alan Jacksonesque patriotism songs - "Look out Osaddama Ben Allah 'cause this Eagle Rocks!"). Maybe it's simply because sidewalks would encourage the wrong kind of people to move here. People who walk. People without cars. You know the type: The poor and the immigrants.

Still this morning, on my way to the bus stop, I could not help but be impressed by the quiet majesty of these well manicured gardens with their shaved bushes lined up for inspection; each with their tamed wild flowers, immaculately even rows of roses guarding patches of Irises sprinkled around the windows with the care of frosted trim around an elaborate ice cream cake. The sky was a dull silver or a magnificent gray. The sun hung low behind the rooftops still. Visions of what this would all look like if the human race were to vanish overwhelmed me. I saw the trees revolt, their roots cracking through the pavement of the road. Vines sprouted out of the earth, their tendrils creeping up the coudroy colored walls of each home and pulling them pack down into the ground. The grass grew knee high and flooded out of the pools of gardens, erasing the arbitray boundaries established by mortages and property lines. The cars in what was left of the driveway became oversized flower pots, where strange new breeds sprouted from the shattered plexiglass windows. Roaming packs of feral toy dogs waged tribal warfare against armies of mutant squirrels and ninja clans of once domesticated cats.

It was a better world for sure, but one I could never see according to the imaginary logic I had made up.

I reached the park and my new Jerusalem turned into a Wasteland. The sun was visible now, a bright dime that sat on the apex of a throne of clouds, it casted a dream haze over everything around me. The rusted chain link fences cordoned off the dead grass of the baseball fields and soccer courts. Broken glass glittered faintly before it crunched under my steps. Piles of brown dirt sat indifferently between the few pathways leading from park to Pleasantdale Road. The empty bleechers gave off a bad soul stink somewhere between blood lust and despair. Intuition shivered in my gut. I don't know why and I won't qualify any special talents, but something tells me something bad is going to happen here. As soon as I thought those words I heard the cry of crows above. I looked up and saw them circling over the park, cawing black omens over the field.

I shook the feeling off once I managed to cross Pleasantdale (which is tantamount to crossing I-85 at rush hour)where the bus stop is located behind an overgrown shrub. I stood there watching the crows as they landed along the top of the dug-out fence and had myself a cigarette, admiring quietly their ominous poetry.

Comments

[efire360.livejournal.com]

Eagle Rock hasn't been the same since the disbanding of the House of Yes.

Pleasantdale Park is so totally not my hang out spot, especially since the notices of the uncaught baby mamma rapist were circulated at my complex. Rapes the mammas, babies watch. Very bad, very, very bad place to wait for the bus.

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed the HoY parties myself and they had the added bonus that I could stumble home drunk afterward in relatively short time.

Pleasantdale Parks always been creepy as I recall. I used to cut through there at night when traveling between Eaglerock & Lynn Ray. It used to be a drop off point for stolen cars after joy rides and i'd often pass strange men hanging out on the bleachers in the dark.

I remember reading about the serial rapist with the MO you described awhile back. They haven't made any progress on the case yet?

[efire360.livejournal.com]

None that I've heard about. My rent check is over $50 more than it should be, so I will inquire when I straighten that out with the leasing office.

[gaeasdaughter.livejournal.com]

Interesting post-apocalyptic vision of suburbia. Had to read the line about the feral toy dogs over and over to the Little Emperor. He now has visions of turf wars with the Eola Park Nutcrackers (a particularly aggressive gang of squirrels, forced into the hard life by the closing of the restaurant downstairs where they used to get daily handouts). Of course, this was also sparked by watching The Warriors.

[daucus-carota.livejournal.com]

When I visit home, I am always overwhelmed with the fine line that I believe there is between the vegetation of "civilization" and the vegetation the Earth wishes to produce. For some reason, it seems so much more clear in NC that at any moment the Earth could win. I must say, I kinda pull for her too. She's far more deserving than the humans!
xxx