on a boat

I’m in A Clockwork Orange. At first i’m just watching some of the scenes as they unfold (horrifying violence). Somebody is beside me, but i don’t know who it is. We watched as Alex and his cronies beat up the homeless man. We watch as Alex and his hooligans brutalize and kill the woman from the story. Then the scene shifts to a kind of camp site under an abandoned overpass. It’s Alex and a teenage girl with frosted hair. Some time has passed since the brutal rape and murder of the woman (from the story) but before the authorities have apprehended Alex and subjected him to his “humane” reconditioning. I’m explaining to my ‘companion’ that Time and Love have cured Alex but the authorities will still torture him into becoming a monster again. An older woman appears in the camp scene and i assume it’s the girl’s mom. She’s very welcoming to Alex and i feel bad that Alex is going to have to leave this caring comfort and finish the movie because we know what happens.


I’m on a vacation trip with Scott and Mike. We’re in a tourist town in ? The Dells? It’s very rustic and sort of a fishing village. We’re driving a small rental car. We decide to take one of the boat tours of the lake but the “road” to get up to the boat house is a series of switch backs made of boards and rope. (It reminds me of the rope bridges in Stranglethorn Vale.) We leave the car and walk up the ‘road’. It seems secure enough and after three switchbacks we get up to the boat house. Inside a few people have already gathered, getting ready for the tour. It cost $23.00 to take the tour so i give the son of the boat captain twenty five and ask him to keep the extra two dollars for a tip to give his dad. We all board the boat. It’s fairly long but narrow and roofless. Like a cross between a Viking longboat and a john boat. We get our places and begin the tour. We travel along shallows until we get to the next patch of civilization. The boat can travel on water or land somehow, and the captain takes us in to a room of historical significance to the town. It’s where important treaties were signed. During this stop, i see the captain say to someone “I know what you’re going through. I have something that might help.” I look around to see who he’s talking to and it’s Mike. Mike has motion sickness and looks miserable. He’s sweating and shaking but has a smile on his face. Very odd. He tells us he’ll be okay so we continue on the journey. After we leave the room, we return to the water. The captain is telling us about an area of the lake where the water thickens to almost a gel consistency and is full of creatures. We (the customers on the boat) are excited and want to see. We venture into the gel waters and immediately begin seeing lots of bears and elk. We continue on until we get to a shore. It’s under a pine forest and the path that the boat takes is covered with pine needles. The shore banks pretty steeply towards the water and as we travel along this path, i see what i think is a great white shark and ask the captain if that is indeed what i’m seeing. He assures me that these gel waters are full of great whites. As he says that, i see a great horned owl standing at the edge of the water. I never realized how big those birds are and am pretty amazed at its majesty and beauty. It watches us as we move past. A little further along there’s another great white at the shore. All i can see is its head but it’s HUGE. The head is about three feet across so i know the shark is at least a twenty footer. I don’t really feel afraid or threatened by it even though it would love to eat us because i’m in the boat and too far from the water for it to affect us. Just then, a doe comes running down the hill and straight into the gaping maw of the great white. It’s horrifying and fascinating at the same time. I can’t figure out why the deer did that. We continue up the shore bank a little more than return to the gel water. I can see flashes of sharks around the lake and think that this would be a great place to study great whites because it would be so easy to keep track of them in a lake instead of the ocean. We return to our point of origin and disembark. I don’t know where Mike is now, but Scott has to do some work. I realize that i didn’t get any pictures on our boat trip and decide to take another one to get pictures. I find another boat house and purchase a ticket. This boat has a roof over it and open windows. I’m disappointed because i preferred the open boat, but take a seat by one of the windows. The people on the boat are a mix of men and women, mostly my age or older. We start the tour on a main road through town. The buildings are old and elegant. I begin snapping pictures with my film camera. The sun is starting to set and the colors of the sky behind the geometric shapes of the buildings are very pretty and i point it out to the man in the seat next to me. He asks me about my camera and i show him it’s a Minolta X370 with a zoom telephoto lens. I step out side on to the deck of the boat. I’m a bit wobbly and afraid i might fall off so i try to stay in the center. Two of the ladies from the tour are outside also and i feel like maybe i’m interrupting them but they’re friendly. I return inside to my seat to continue taking pictures. We’ve started up a long hill through the woods to our next stop.

By this time it’s fully night and very dark. We arrive at the building – it’s some kind of fish processing plant? and we disembark. The fluorescent lights are comforting in the dark. As we walk through an entry way, there are several black men wearing white sailor looking uniforms (Jamaican?) handing each of us a sandwich wrapped in wax paper. The two women that were on the deck with me are ahead of me in line. The take their sandwiches and walk through another set of doors. I take my sandwich and i’m thinking “i hope this doesn’t have mayonnaise on it” and try to follow where the other women went but can’t find the door they went through. I turn around and go out the way i came in. The sailor men look at me kind of puzzled but don’t stop me. When i get back outside i realize that this is the end of the tour and i begin to panic because i don’t know where i am. I remember i have my cell phone and turn it on to call Scott. At first i can’t get a signal so i move away from the building, closer to the road and place where the boat is parked. I finally get Scott on the line and it’s a crackly bad connection and i can hardly hear him. I ask if he’ll come and get me and he asks where i am. I ask one of the plant workers where this place is and all he says is “Canada.” I ask him “WHERE in Canada” and he says the name of the town. I’ve never heard of it but figure it must be right over the border. Then i’m in a van going back to where Scott and Mike are and we’re going back through the buildings that i’d take photos of earlier and i realize i was never in Canada. I’m disappointed with the second boat tour because i’d really wanted to go back on the gel lake to get pictures of the sharks. I still have the sandwich in my hand and i don’t know whether to keep it or throw it away.