A man in a ‘Salvador Dali for President’ shirt sat on a pier at sunset. It reminded him of childhood memories of southern California. He was born in the working-class suburbs of Los Angeles. As a child, he wanted to be a professional surfer. Now, he’s an acute businessman. He sells fedoras and bow ties online for a living. The man in a ‘Salvador Dali for President’ shirt pulled out a book from his backpack. It was called, The Origins of Big Wave Surfing. It’s about the history of big wave surfing and has iconic surf photography. The man read the book as the waves crashed along the pier. When the moon eventually rose, the man in a ‘Salvador Dali for President’ shirt gathered his belongings to head home. He rode his beach cruiser in the moonlight, knowing fully well he’d be back at the pier next week, along with the prolific fog and wind.

I woke up in a reasonably priced, clean hotel. I was in the middle of the country, perhaps Oklahoma. The reason I didn’t know exactly which state I was in was because I had been getting sleepy at the wheel last night during a storm and pulled over as soon as possible. I walked outside of the hotel room. It began to rain, again. I got an umbrella from the trunk of my car. The winds intensified. My umbrella was suddenly yanked out of my grip. My clothes were eventually also ripped off my body. I was naked and exposed. It was the Garden of Eden, actually. Eve showed up and took me to an isolated creek. The rain stopped. We read poetry and painted together beside the peaceful waters. That’s when a snake appeared. I could sense what was going to happen next. I told the snake to buzz off, I don’t like apples. It slithered away like a pack of field mice. Eve and I finished painting a portrait together. The portrait was of a picnic on a prairie in autumn.

         Next, we went back to the hotel to watch Netflix. I found a movie a painter friend had recommended to me. It was called: “The Illusion of Time.” It starred Michael Peña and Eva Longoria. It didn’t seem like a high budget film, but it was tastefully done and artsy.

           I was surprised to see the movie was about my literal childhood in southern California. It was simultaneously also about Eve’s life in the Garden of Eden. I played basketball and football in the street as a youth, both in the movie and in real life. Eve picked daisies with prairie sheep and blew soap bubbles in a field of wonder. The movie went on to explore our adolescent years, mine of rock and roll air guitar and sports, Eve, of portrait painting and classical ballet. Next, were the college years. It turns out Eve was a successful Ivy League liberal arts student. She continued to practice ballet on the weekends. I was a scrappy community college student who made it to UC Berkeley while working at the public library. The movie went on to depict our middle-aged professional lives: me, a crafty guitarist on tour most of the year, from hotel to hotel, coast to coast. Eve became an immigration lawyer fighting for human rights and dignity. I turned the movie off as it began to explore our elderly years.

           As I turned the lights back on, I noticed Eve was missing. Had she gone back to the idyllic Garden? I was in Ohio, now, getting ready for my next concert. Swirling clouds, as in a van Gogh painting, formed in the looming distance.