THERE WAS A TIME WHEN THE RIDERS OF AMERICAN-MADE MOTORCYCLES WERE RESPECTABLE OUTLAWS INSTEAD OF PRIVILEGED CAUCASIANS LIVING A PART-TIME FANTASY IN LEATHER CHAPS.

I have a reoccurring dream.  It varies slightly. 

I'm somewhere inconsequential: a street corner, walking out of a garage, leaning against a parked car. 

What I'm doing isn't important.  And, to be honest, I rarely remember that part of the dream.  But I'm doing something. 

Then a faceless man appears with a gun: a .45, 9mm, sawed-off shotgun.

I always think, "fuck, that's a gun.  run!"

(which is odd because when I've had guns pointed towards me in concrete life I haven't moved, just stood there, feeling afraid while wearing a hateful facial expression.)

But the weapon fires a round into my head before I can react.

I never hear the report.

Time slows down and a surge of air slowly pushes over my face followed by a delayed, intense pressure against my neck. 

Sort of like when I'm standing on the corner of Hollywood and Western, day dreaming about naked amputees being choke fucked by hands that aren't mine, not paying attention, and a speeding bus passes by, inches away.

 I look up to the sky; it's blue, always blue, not a cloud or a bird or the sun--just blue.

The panic sets in.

And I realize I'm going to die.

I keep saying to myself, "I'm dying."

"I'm dying."

"I'm dying."

"...I'm dying."

I sort of accept it.  It's not like I can do anything else.

Then a growing blackness closes around me until eventually I'm a suffocating consciousness.

"I'm dead."

A heaviness inside my mind.

"I used to exist."

Going in a permanent hibernation.

"I don't want to die."

Then I suddenly wake, without lungs, dry gasping, clawing at nothingness.

There's a moment of disorientation, a different plane of reality, not here or there, right before the oxygen violently rushes back in.

During this time is when I feel alive.

Genuine.

Without ego, negativity, dissatisfaction, reluctance--everything.

Just free.