Sasha Fletcher is the author of the novella When All Our Days Are Numbered Marching Bands Will Fill the Streets and We Will Not Hear Them Because We Will Be Upstairs in the Clouds (reissue due from Calamari Press in 2014) and a couple of poetry chapbooks. "Summer Camp" is forthcoming in a chapbook from Big Lucks Books in early 2014 called Dear Gloria, Dear Madeline, Dear Siobhan, Dear Ethel, Dear Eloise, Dear Wendy, Dear Becky, Dear Lisa, Dear Liza, Dear Michelle, Dear Tamika, Dear Tanya, Tonight.Image by Olivia HindsSummer CampThere is a sunset and then it's gone because reallywhat better way to start than with a sunsetthat we've already forgotten about? So it's darkbut there are stars in the sky all lit uplike a broken-up gang of light houses spelling out warningswe can't see and it's not that this is a metaphorit's just that we can't stop staringat what we now recognize to a be coffinthat is (and trust us, there is really no other way to put thisbecause we have tried) dancing its way across the field towards usand we have called for our relatives to bring beer and refreshmentsand then it stops, and so does the music, which we did not even noticeuntil it was gone. This stop though is, as it turns out,nothing more than a pause, an instant, and then it's gone, and the coffinleaps upright, and spits out a grown man in a cowboy suitwith a skull for a head under a hat that could holdseveral gallons of something. And the man reachesfor what we can only assume is a gun, as the birds in the treesbegin to chorus like a murder, and listen, because thisis the important part: we did not come here to die. We came hereto go to summer camp says Rebecca the camp directorwho is a personthat Michelle Tamika and Tanya just inventedto direct the summer camp they have startedout here in the woods where they have goneto invent their own dreamboats in this kicked-up excusefor a party we call life. Rebecca the camp directorleads us all to our bunks, which are well appointed, let me tell you.We have got some bunk beds and the floor has those peltsyou see in romance novels, and they are everything you think they areif what you think they are is comfortable and vaguely scented with death.The loudspeaker mounted on the roof of the porch announcesfor breakfast today we are having everything and we are having iton tables like the civilized people I yearn for you to be. Without dreamswe are little more than figments of someone else's imaginationand I don't know about you but I did not spend my lifewaiting to be someone else's light bulb. Today's activityis building a dreamboat. We are building our dreamboatsto better get to our dreams. I am not asking you to play niceso much as I am saying that a dreamboat is not a dining hall.There will be a cool breeze off the lake at lunch time.Lord knows who invented the Public Address systembut we are the ones who will live with it.We can feel the breeze on our hair and it is not unwelcome.There are certain advances that are still miraculous.At this moment the camera zooms out and pansrapidly in every direction, which is obnoxiousand disorienting, until finally settling on the lumberjackswho ask themselves Where did all those girls in the woods gowith their long legs and their fierce eyesand their barely discernable hospitality and nextwe see Eloise and Eloise has some ideas that she is writing downonto the pages of a journal and then eating the pagesin order to better understand herself and her thoughtsand Sasha is writing out his feelings on the skyas though that is what it was there for and in the distanceof his barely present interest in the world around himhe notes an absence. Meanwhile Rebecca the camp directordusts the bunks of insecurities because insecuritieshave no place at summer camp. The lumberjacksstart singing that song that starts That Man don't own me/and that man don't want me/ and I'll be damned/if I spend one more night carving his face onto my heartand ends I should really call my father/for he was never there for me in the ways that counted/but that doesn't mean he can't be set on fire/we're speaking metaphorically here/we are in fact addressing desire/because desire go Michelle and Tamika and Tanyais a sad-bound train headed past the sea/whose spray we could smell on a bad day from miles/and miles away/ if we had a submarine/things would be different but if our lives were based/on all the things we were lacking then baby/what a glossy magazine we could run/O baby what a glossy magazine/we could run. They have a discussion about dreamboatsand the discussion is as follows:Michelle has finished her dreamboatand set it on fire. Tamika has finished her dreamboatand set it on fire. Tanya started but did not finishfive dreamboats, all of which she has set on fire.Rebecca the camp directorsets the camp on fire. Summer camphas not yet ended but our dreamshave just begun. Everyone piles into a sports car. They do donuts in the parking lotthat sprouted up from the ashes of their dreamswhich will not be mentionedbecause dreams are privateand the door is closedand it says Do Not Disturband if you are reading this that means you.The girls leap from their cars which crashright into each other, and then explode,and the flames spell out GOOD BYE SUMMER CAMPWE HAVE LOVED YOU SO and then the flamesturn into heart shaped balloons and the girlsare at a diner, drinking milkshakes and laughingat the times they have had while all the ghostsof every man who ever tried to invent a better realityin the hopes that it would be better than whatever was already therewatch them and drool, and then walk awaybecause even a failed idea is more than the sum of its failureso we hope we hope we hope we hopegoes the audience. And they do. And we do.And you do. And the girls are indifferentbecause their failures are real, and personal,and said failures are weights around their hearts coatedin glitter and in the processof becoming diamonds. Rebecca the camp directorreaches for the loudspeaker one last time. She is standingin a burnt out cabin with a window and a wall and a roofat the shore of the lake she made the parking lot intobecause she has always wanted a lakeshore viewas she announces Summer camp is over ladies.For dinner you are having milkshakes and you are having themin a diner. Your sunburns are extensiveand beautiful to behold. Your hearts are glittering diamondsbecause that is what you say they are but minemine is a big bloody thing that hangs by a threadand I love you all the more for it. Then the camp directorsets the loudspeaker on fire and goes off into the woodswhere a party has gathered,and she begins to wind up a coffin to better represent death,because summer camp is over, and death is all aroundand that is just that.
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