Going West

Once, a hundred cigarettes glowed in just one cinema. Arrows flew yet all were near misses, random unaimed bullets easily knocked over bunches of whooping Comanches. Some horses were shot unseen off-screen. In small Midwest towns fantasy roamed unchecked nibbling at young hearts and brains. Many adults pinned their hopes on the aerodynamic tailfins of Chevy Stingrays and more spaceship roundness in their homes. Malls proliferated on the edge of cornfields where prayers were answered on Sunday. All this was normal, no one marked our lack of awareness, we were painted innocent by a world that had come to terms with its time. We knew much was wrong some radicals fought for the oppressed. Texas Rangers stood ready to lasso hordes of cartoon villains. A few federal agents imagined time travel. The whole country was going somewhere and working hard to ignore where we were, as if in fact, we were all stuck in a movie peering over the glow of a hundred cigarettes.