Upon waking:
an off-white ceiling above me...it's yellowing from a once brilliant white of a grand hotel...more white burning my eyes from the bare light bulb...the room smells old, no candles or incense to disguise the smell of a building more than a century old...turn over, jump onto a floor the same color as the ceiling...turn around to see walls the same color as ceiling...there are old bunk beds, old dressers, and old chairs in various shades of wood, even painted a fading, decaying green...bright clothes hung from hooks, tossed upon the dressers, strewn on the floor are the only items of color in this drab, dying room...

reach out to royal blue and fire engine red...i call this polyester jumpsuit my uniform...it reminds me of the flag, the red white and blue...reminds me of fireworks...step into the hall to the same drab ivory of the room before...there are long, black and white stripes running the distance of the hall...there are more bare bulbs to burn my eyes, more old pipes, ceiling, floor, walls, all the same color...except for the rug...staring down either length of the hall, makes me feel as if I'm in an insane asylum, Alice's Evil Wonderland...the hall with it's eerie black and white carpet never ends...I feel trapped...

Focus on the aluminum grey of the screen door at the end of the hallway...walk toward it, past flowery smells, past patchouli scent, past cigarette smoke...make it out of this dreary home to the world outside...

the sun dazzles my eyes as does the bright blue sky around it...the world becomes awash of scents and colors...green trees, brown tree trunks, pale blue water tower 20 feet from my door, black asphalt, drab ivory of the guard booth, yellow lines of the parking lot, barn red building-the foods wharehouse...smells hot, sun burning miles of pavement, sun burning metal, sun burning my own skin...i can smell my hair, my skin, my sweat, the lake...the lake is a unique scent-not quite the ocean-not some stagnant pond...it's alive with seagulls, fish, people, sail boats, barges...the scent fills my nose, my eyes, I can feel it through my body...

continue toward the guard booth (the second one-not my building's, the park's)...more black pavement, black fence, black and white uniform, pretty red and white smile, black asphalt turns to tan cement...even more colors assault me upon entrance and walk through the park...yellow Scrambler, brown-blue-green-magenta Sky Ride, blue-white Matterhorn, red white and blue Corkscrew, purple red and yellow Mantis-occasional tree, occasional flower...the smell of heat pervades my walk as it bounces off the midway, off my skin, it steals the wonderful smell of my Lake...i'm no more than 200 feet from water, and the heat has sucked away the smell...the heat rots the apple cores, cotton candy, hot dogs, muffleheads...pass a pile of dead muffleheads, a smell like old shoes with roadkill and green beans...pass trash cans, heat burns their plastic, burns my nose...pass the vomit can, someone's up-chucked lunch inside...

more colors...red of the Iron Dragon...big, grey IMAX theater...white Wild Cat...red-green-yellow-blue Big Wheel...red and green Train...smell dumpsters, more vomit trash cans, more heat, smell toilet paper from the bathrooms, the water on metal smell of drinking fountains...smell BO of someone passing me...smell the dank, rotten lagoons, the steam from the lagoons...pass under dark shadow, walk up green stairs, step into brown control booth...

yellow and red buttons before me, surrounded by grey and silver metal...smell the oil from the coaster train...see more red and blue of my own uniform in my fellow employees...dispatch...clear...smell the wind as the train passes...

(Cedar Point 1997-walk from my room to the Iron Dragon roller coaster)

Was it too long?