Sean Elliott awoke in his house in the middle of the night. He had dreamt of his funeral.
===
As per his will, Elliott was to be buried in seemingly random coordinates. The grave was to have latitude exactly halfway between the longitudes of Elliott's mother and wife's graves, and also to have longitude exactly halfway between the longitudes of David Robinson and Avery Johnson's graves.
This "grave-site" ended up being right in the middle of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and of course he could not be buried there. So Sean Elliott was cremated - the thought among the mourners being that his ashes would be spread exactly on the desired point, carried by a boat. But enduring the harsh January in a boat would be somewhat rough, even over saltwater, So the mourners again compromised a bit, and instead of mixing Elliott's ashes with the lake at the coordinates from his will, the mourners baked Sean Elliott's ashes in a (my sources tell me) very tasty rye bread and served it to various birds that passed by on the San Antonio sidewalk where they were gathered. At these birds the mourners laughed and laughed, for the birds' various chirpings reminded them of the deceased. An aging Tim Duncan even gave a particularly chirpy bird a friendly shove - the call-back was at once virtuous and ridiculous, not to mention fitting. The joke was well-received by the mourners.
===
Now Sean Elliott was awake and immediately said aloud, "What an absurd dream that was," speaking in a voice perfectly fitting the sentence. "Bill will love this." Elliott was not concerned about the image of his corpse and ashes - he knew that dreams were not representative of reality. Their only function, really, was to serve as a conversation piece, he supposed.
And indeed, that sentence would help chart the course for the next day. One by one, Elliott would tell all the Spurs all about his funny dream and indeed, the Spurs would find great humor in it - small forward Richard Jefferson especially. Elliott gradually began telling it with embellishments - his favorite puns and flourishes - as those helped to make his silly recounting truly a great story. At one point Elliott had told them his dream so many times that he got his play-by-play announcer Bill to commentate on Jefferson's memorized narration of the dream with him while he added his trademark color commentary.
By the end of the day, though, this routine had worn thin. Sean had told all the Spurs and they were getting quite sick of this retelling - even the once-enthusiastic Jefferson sighed and now secretly hated Elliott's voice. Except for Tim Duncan. For Duncan had been bored by Elliott's tale from the beginning. After hearing the same retelling three times in a row near the end of the day, Duncan spoke up.
"Sean," innocuous Duncan asked, "What exactly do you think your dream means?"
Elliott awkwardly chuckled. "Gee, Timmy, I don't know. I don't think it quite has a meaning. Heh heh ha."
"I really think it would be better for you to come back to me, you know, when you have a more satisfactory response for me, Sean."
So the challenge was made, and Sean Elliott could not refuse. On some level, I here speculate that Duncan had immediately understood - had understood that Elliott's response to the "meaning" of this dream would be unfathomably better than the dream itself - better in insight or hilarity, and probably both. After the challenge Sean Elliott went home to meditate, to no avail. He suspected it was the poses he struck in meditating that caused its failure. At night Sean Elliott dreamt of his funeral.
===
The birds were not chirping. The sky was grey and after a brief pause the snowy impenetrable air followed suit. With grey on every side of them the mourners could not but walk through their grey worlds, each uninhabited. In San Antonio the birds were not chirping. All the mourners were cloaked in a hooded greatcoat including a cute jacket for the urn itself. As per his will Sean Elliott had been cremated and as the mourners walked Tim Duncan held this urn with careful ease. As the mourners reached at last the spot to spread the ashes, Tim Duncan's legs gave way momentarily, collapsing under his age and spreading without ceremony most of the ashes from the urn. As the little whispers grazed the snow in the air, Duncan without emotion began gathering them back into the urn as much as possible. With gloves this task would have been impossible so Duncan took his gloves off and started to dig through the snow and air with some success. Finally another mourner, a tall hooded man of broad shoulders in a greatcoat, stopped him and helped to bring Duncan to his feet. Drawing his hood back something became clear: this man was David Robinson, broadly smiling, as always, with perfect dignity. As they stood up they looked around and then at each other. The only mourners for Sean Elliott, nodding to agree, now threw his ashes in the air, alternating handfuls and reveling in the snow.
===
The next morning Elliott told the other Spurs, to great amusement, about the second dream. The story being new again, the Spurs immediately forgot how he had painfully overstepped with the story the previous day.
Tim Duncan was not so amused and treated the new story like a bad pass from a good Spur. No, Tim Duncan was not at all satisfied, nor had he reason to be. For Elliott still had no answer to Tim Duncan's request yesterday for the first dream's meaning. Today Duncan again pushed the advantage as far as possible, and now demanded an answer to the second dream as well. Duncan expected this answer, he implied, on his desk tomorrow, hand-written. Duncan had a force and seriousness to his words that was surprising. Tim Duncan's stake in this was exactly the same as his stake in a game - he would try relentlessly to help his teammates win to the best of his ability. The only problem, Elliott considered, was what exactly the game was, and who exactly he considered his teammates. This chain of reasoning evoked in Elliott the ruthless birds from the dream.
That evening Elliott thought and thought about the dreams - for two hours, he meditated in every fantastic pose he had ever seen in a movie or self-help book. This tired the aging Elliott out very quickly, and forgetting the dreams, he fell asleep.
===
It was Memorial Day, 1999...
===
As per his will, Elliott was to be buried in seemingly random coordinates. The grave was to have latitude exactly halfway between the longitudes of Elliott's mother and wife's graves, and also to have longitude exactly halfway between the longitudes of David Robinson and Avery Johnson's graves.
This "grave-site" ended up being right in the middle of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and of course he could not be buried there. So Sean Elliott was cremated - the thought among the mourners being that his ashes would be spread exactly on the desired point, carried by a boat. But enduring the harsh January in a boat would be somewhat rough, even over saltwater, So the mourners again compromised a bit, and instead of mixing Elliott's ashes with the lake at the coordinates from his will, the mourners baked Sean Elliott's ashes in a (my sources tell me) very tasty rye bread and served it to various birds that passed by on the San Antonio sidewalk where they were gathered. At these birds the mourners laughed and laughed, for the birds' various chirpings reminded them of the deceased. An aging Tim Duncan even gave a particularly chirpy bird a friendly shove - the call-back was at once virtuous and ridiculous, not to mention fitting. The joke was well-received by the mourners.
===
Now Sean Elliott was awake and immediately said aloud, "What an absurd dream that was," speaking in a voice perfectly fitting the sentence. "Bill will love this." Elliott was not concerned about the image of his corpse and ashes - he knew that dreams were not representative of reality. Their only function, really, was to serve as a conversation piece, he supposed.
And indeed, that sentence would help chart the course for the next day. One by one, Elliott would tell all the Spurs all about his funny dream and indeed, the Spurs would find great humor in it - small forward Richard Jefferson especially. Elliott gradually began telling it with embellishments - his favorite puns and flourishes - as those helped to make his silly recounting truly a great story. At one point Elliott had told them his dream so many times that he got his play-by-play announcer Bill to commentate on Jefferson's memorized narration of the dream with him while he added his trademark color commentary.
By the end of the day, though, this routine had worn thin. Sean had told all the Spurs and they were getting quite sick of this retelling - even the once-enthusiastic Jefferson sighed and now secretly hated Elliott's voice. Except for Tim Duncan. For Duncan had been bored by Elliott's tale from the beginning. After hearing the same retelling three times in a row near the end of the day, Duncan spoke up.
"Sean," innocuous Duncan asked, "What exactly do you think your dream means?"
Elliott awkwardly chuckled. "Gee, Timmy, I don't know. I don't think it quite has a meaning. Heh heh ha."
"I really think it would be better for you to come back to me, you know, when you have a more satisfactory response for me, Sean."
So the challenge was made, and Sean Elliott could not refuse. On some level, I here speculate that Duncan had immediately understood - had understood that Elliott's response to the "meaning" of this dream would be unfathomably better than the dream itself - better in insight or hilarity, and probably both. After the challenge Sean Elliott went home to meditate, to no avail. He suspected it was the poses he struck in meditating that caused its failure. At night Sean Elliott dreamt of his funeral.
===
The birds were not chirping. The sky was grey and after a brief pause the snowy impenetrable air followed suit. With grey on every side of them the mourners could not but walk through their grey worlds, each uninhabited. In San Antonio the birds were not chirping. All the mourners were cloaked in a hooded greatcoat including a cute jacket for the urn itself. As per his will Sean Elliott had been cremated and as the mourners walked Tim Duncan held this urn with careful ease. As the mourners reached at last the spot to spread the ashes, Tim Duncan's legs gave way momentarily, collapsing under his age and spreading without ceremony most of the ashes from the urn. As the little whispers grazed the snow in the air, Duncan without emotion began gathering them back into the urn as much as possible. With gloves this task would have been impossible so Duncan took his gloves off and started to dig through the snow and air with some success. Finally another mourner, a tall hooded man of broad shoulders in a greatcoat, stopped him and helped to bring Duncan to his feet. Drawing his hood back something became clear: this man was David Robinson, broadly smiling, as always, with perfect dignity. As they stood up they looked around and then at each other. The only mourners for Sean Elliott, nodding to agree, now threw his ashes in the air, alternating handfuls and reveling in the snow.
===
The next morning Elliott told the other Spurs, to great amusement, about the second dream. The story being new again, the Spurs immediately forgot how he had painfully overstepped with the story the previous day.
Tim Duncan was not so amused and treated the new story like a bad pass from a good Spur. No, Tim Duncan was not at all satisfied, nor had he reason to be. For Elliott still had no answer to Tim Duncan's request yesterday for the first dream's meaning. Today Duncan again pushed the advantage as far as possible, and now demanded an answer to the second dream as well. Duncan expected this answer, he implied, on his desk tomorrow, hand-written. Duncan had a force and seriousness to his words that was surprising. Tim Duncan's stake in this was exactly the same as his stake in a game - he would try relentlessly to help his teammates win to the best of his ability. The only problem, Elliott considered, was what exactly the game was, and who exactly he considered his teammates. This chain of reasoning evoked in Elliott the ruthless birds from the dream.
That evening Elliott thought and thought about the dreams - for two hours, he meditated in every fantastic pose he had ever seen in a movie or self-help book. This tired the aging Elliott out very quickly, and forgetting the dreams, he fell asleep.
===
It was Memorial Day, 1999...
I had been reading a lot of Chekhov and it really worked well for awhile, but I just couldn't grasp what about this piece worked and so I couldn't continue it. In the end it turned into slapstick with the other Sean Elliott piece.
ReplyDelete