When The Bubbles Burst

When The Bubbles Burst

By Joel Elveson

See the bubbles the beautiful bubbles. Clusters of bubbles floating all around. Some big bubbles along with some smaller ones. One lands on your nose. One lands on your toes. Yet another one lands on a fence but miraculously does not pop. With a wave of your magic wand more bubbles appear with still more bubbles yet. So many rainbows with so many colors that who can count them all. See them ascend with gentle grace. Those we can no longer see may we know where they can be. The precious bubbles that I with a flick or a puff made them magically appear.

In our lives, we may one day see ourselves inside a bubble tumbling rolling in mid-air. Right side up to upside down as round and round we go. There is ground we can see below along with the faces of the people we recognize but we cannot reach them. Voiceless walking figurines. In the bubble we float on by yet we are not seen. Our bubble is not a fortress of solitude but we think of it that way nonetheless. All that what we were or who we might be had we not have been where we are now floating along in perfect harmony with disharmony as the world whizzes by. With a prick of a pin imaginary or not our bubble bursts open and we are set free. Free to soar free to free fall but we are contorted, distorted, disfigured, disenfranchized, and dysfunctional. Is it our lives that are over or is our lives is over with us out of sheer disgust. Pick up the pieces of what little is left to take them to time.

Once there was a love we shared. A life to our existence there clearly was. We chased after bubbles that held our deepest dreams. Together we would bind our hands together as we climbed the highest mountains or the tallest trees never before known to man. We would roar down a raging river in a life raft with visions of our beloved bubbles following close behind. A love once so fresh was suddenly reduced to characters embedded in a camera lens. In a flash or a streak of lightning from the moonlight midnight sky, it was over. It was over. Memories buried beneath the ground in a time capsule not likely to ever to be discovered or uncovered.

Husbands and wives, wives and husbands, boyfriends/girlfriends, lovers and friends, friends and lovers, singers, songwriters, singer-songwriters it’s all the same only the order of the words change. You are a boy but you want to be a girl but you are still a boy who will soon be a man but like the rest of us when the thrashing of the sea causes the waves to wash us away we have nothing left to do but whisper. Whisper the name you know so well while burying your head in your burly arms but there is no escape or place to run. Wave the wand. Wave the wand. Simple soap that transforms into mystical, magical bubbles we want to be in or get out of.

We did not find ourselves anywhere inside of ourselves tonight. The little freckled faced boy with the red tricycle was nowhere in sight. His fantasy was not in flight or in longing for a fight. When he was moved north of where he was it was there he discovered a family who believed in the goodness of kindness. For the boy was kind as they were kind even when nobody wanted their kind. They tried to dress tough just to fit in. They were creatures of a different order. As years went by they broke apart but remained one at heart. She who tugged at his shirt sleeves as she said she was a good one. All too soon she was gone as her innocence was ripped from her as her clothes were shredded, tattered and torn just as was her heart She could no longer see a song. The books she left behind not soon after that she left her mind. I don’t know if she recovered after she came back only to go away for good this time. A big heart in tiny frail body dressed in black velvet.

Icy stares. Midnight moonlight glares. Live or think out of the box so they say. The box does not break down as bubbles burst. For what more can a person thirst? Look at the world through the bubble in the glass prism. Do you not imagine what life could you like if you were somehow forever to be trapped inside of that prison that can never be? Time for you or I to go back out into the twilight of our years before our minds take leave of our bodies. For it is before then that you must rebuild.

In this world we find ourselves living in what we have saved that contains beauty. What can be done to protect that which is most precious to us? These questions or thoughts should not be esoteric. It should be ingrained into our psyche that which must be done. Yes, we can dip or wands yet again into the soapy sudsy liquid to create more free-floating bubbles but what happens when the bubbles burst. Where then do we go or turn to retrieve what has been lost.

“But take your time, think a lot, why think of everything you’ve got for you will still be here tomorrow but your dreams may not.” Father & Son-Cat Stevens. “Cause his time is time, in time with your time and its news is captured for the queen to use.”-I’ve Seen All Good People-YES. “And so you and I we watch our years go by. We watch our sweet dreams fly far away (away) but maybe someday I don’t know when but we will dream again and we’ll be happy then until our time just drifts away.” Dreams-Harry Chapin

I want to know where did it all go. Is what happened now a precursor to what happens next now that the bubbles have burst? The bubbles have burst. The bubbles have burst. A lesson is being taught we must learn never to take for granted or pretend all that happened cannot happen yet again. The unbridled fury of the water threw itself at us with an unforgiving vengeance. Swept away or washed away will be what will be today as ordered when the bubbles have burst.

There are no more bottles of hopes, dreams, or fantasies for sale from the shelf. All have been laid bare. Whatever was inside has been dispersed into the atmosphere outside to become what will become of it. Now that the bubbles have burst can there be a rebirth from the rubble.? Look I just stuck out my finger and a blue bubble came over to sit on it. Such a pretty bubble but why did it have to fly to leave me here standing on my own all by myself? “Mom, do you think wherever it is that it misses me too and wants to come home to rest its form on my finger again? I don’t know my son. I don’t know my darling young son but no matter what you will always be my treasured one