“somewhere over the rainbow.”

hannah and i were walking down a golden brick road 
lit by the street lights of an old town with railroad tracks
dividing each couple street blocks.

she was mine for the night. a date. somehow she agreed.
and was very glad to be. we walked and she stumbled
into me and i put my arms around her from behind…
hugging her while we walked. her feet moved within the
same rhythms as my own. 

she was so happy - telling me her life was coming together
she had a new agent and was about to start getting work.

the moon was full, gleaming down - leading us to a huge
out door screen in the distance. we could see kids sitting 
on their front porches and in front of small shops watching 
the film for free without sound.

we were seeing a horror movie. the first of the season.
one we were both excited to see. she was playful and silly
and bright and witty and as usual, so brilliantly smart.

needless to say, hannah looked beyond gorgeous.

while approaching the box office, our eyes were caught
by dozens of arcade games. kids playing them, and we
couldn’t resist getting in on it and playing back seat driver
to some of them racing through digital maps and screens.

she needed a drink, perhaps a soda water/lemonade 
and i was horribly distracted by the bag of gummie bears
i consumed while walking on the boardwalk outside. i jokingly
said i felt like i would purge at the site of another gummy 
creature and sure enough to my right - three huge machines.
in the middle, the lemonade dispenser, on each side, giant 
gummy dinosaur candies the size of my fist. 

hannah of course, laughed like a goon at my expense until
we came upon a side room in which life size infant gummy
fetuses… were laying on the floor lining the walls…

a feeling of… confusion and negativity crept into both of our
bodies and we were very vocal about it. exclaiming how creepy
and in a way, disgusting these things were. of course we both
picked one up and cradled it just to see how terrible it would feel.

while holding the blue gummy baby we turned back to the 
door from which we came and standing in the center was
a black man in a police uniform. standing just behind him
was another man, white, in the same uniform. 
hannah immediately had my hand in hers and began to
walk past them talking about anything she could think of
at that very moment in order to remain inconspicuous. 

the two men questioned us while walking and we easily
came up with answers, not knowing anything about the people
they were looking for who had been - causing trouble in town.
but, this is where everything went wrong. 

the black officer’s hand held the frame of the door in order
to keep hannah from passing. i could see the looks in their
eyes. the darkness. the evil. the immature insanity.

we were lead into a mens’ public bathroom and hannah
was trying to be as light as possible to play along. i co-opperated
silently and sternly. giving my name phone and address,
her doing the same. we answered the questions and began
our way out the door.

the white cop obstructed my walk way and by the time i turned 
the black cop had hannah in a corner. but no longer dressed
as officers these two men made me aware of a 3rd cop keeping
guard outside - while they toyed and intimidated and frightened
the most dynamically gorgeous woman i’m sure i will ever know.

rage, pain, anxiety, fear and hatred began welling
in my chest, stimulating my throat into choking breathing.
i could see her fighting back tears and began holding in my own as well. 

a blade, the size of my forearm, lay on the table as a tool,
waiting to be picked up by one of these men only to be used as an
instrument of torture and violation.

her strong vail of courage finally was broken before my eyes.
i do not know what they did - i was standing right there and
it was all internal. things i could not see. but they debased her.

in my instant of realization - my eyes shifted to
the blade and back to her eyes. waiting for her to give me 
the go ahead to take chance against these two officers of the law.

she was fading internally - i could feel it and the look she gave
was so desperate and frightened. oh my god. her brow was arched
and her eyes sunk in deep. i could see her gorgeous irises 
drowning in salt water washing out from within.

that moment lasted long enough for me to have the grip of the
blade tightly wrapped in my hands. synchronized with a clash
of screaming sounds, i slashed the blade numerous times across
the white cop’s face - who at the time had been daintily caressing
her. his shirt was shredded thru and rosewood purity filled in the blanks.

for some reason the blade was dull, and as i slashed away
i remembered the tip of the blade being used at very
close proximity to hannah’s eyes by the white cop. 

i grabbed her and pulled her violently out of the room with me
holding the blade at an arms length from the black man 
slowly trying to convince me to submit and let them regain
control of the situation.

hannah darted away from me - i turned and only saw her
blonde hair weave around the corner. followed by music… 
what music could it have been… classical piano… erik satie? 

ignoring this, i chased after….

ending up in the womans bathroom, searching for her,
there was an asian girl sitting on the sink starring at the
3rd cop asking him what he was doing in the bathroom.

i dove into him - slamming my elbow against his throat
and the back of his head into the mirror. turned around 
screaming hannahs name telling her to come to me now. 

the young girl sitting on the counter needed help
and i approached, as her head was swinging clockwise
her eyes fluttering in confused fast - blinks.
i tried to hold her head straight to get a better look but
it did not stop me from seeing her eyes were spinning in place.

god damn it…

hannah came from behind and put her arms around me
and her head on my shoulder. with a crying smile.
a smile she learned as a child - to re assure everything 
would be okay.

i picked her up by her waist and sat her next to the young
asian. she was holding me tight as i tried to pull her arms
off to inspect her closely… 

her eyes were blood shot with blue. the pupils and iris were missing.
all there was was white - and webs of veins and a carved out
center covered with white soft reflective regenerative flesh.
she kept patting my chest blindly looking at my neck saying
it’s going to be okay darwin. its okay. its going to be okay.

in the mirror behind her i saw the mirror behind me reflecting
the entrance of the last cop we left behind.

surrounded by the young girl in distress, hannah refusing to 
let me go, and this bastard smiling walking in. i took the long kinfe 
and rammed it directly into his adams apple as if it were a staff.
leaving him pinned to the wall.

i turned and looked into her blood shot white eyes…
she began humming a song i had heard before… and
whispering a rendition of the lyrics i had not…

“”somewhere over the rainbow - skies are blue
there’s a land that i’ve heard of - why oh why cant you”