a snow of butterflies : texticity

by Tomorrow's Man

August 11, 2007
Road Notes, Memphis, TN., Memphis Int'l Airport, Under the Bubblers, 11:17AM.

I didn't know it was Elvis Presley Weekend in Memphis. I just assumed every weekend was....

I'm hunkered down underneath the water bubblers, between the women's room/severe weather shelter and the emergency defibrillator. I'm past gate 31, almost to 33, but I never made it to my gate, 34.

Across the hall from me - on the other side of the masses heaving into fullbloodfevered Memphis - is a Memphis Flyer, a free local rag, with the King Himself in full white jumpsuit glory on the cover. The headline reads "Elvis Presley, 1935-2007: A Wonderful Life."

I canLt fathom what this means...have they accepted it, at last? Had he been a prisoner all this time?

All I know is that I can't move from beneath the bubblers...if you've ever seen an Aphex Twin video, you'll know why. On shirts, in masks, and adorned in full outfits and makeup, the terminal is swarming with a thousand faces of Elvis, headed right at me. For every human, there's an Elvis. If he's still alive, the terminal is shaking with double the population on foot; if he's dead, I'm being inundated with thousands of clone corpses.

Either way, I'm staying under the bubblers.

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