Bronner’s Disease

From:

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As she walked by, she said, “I have to get out of here before my eyes start to bleed.”

I was already dizzy. Disorientation was setting in as one more mirror of starbursts yielded to another room of them.  I knew I had passed Section 8 before, but was no longer certain when.

And I knew that my companion was was showing the early signs of Stage II when she said, “Oh, but these are cute” and wandered off toward a tree buried in plastic fruit and digital dog photos.

Once BD sets in at that level, full recovery is rare. A shelf of Spartan-opoly and Elvis lightboxes is not enough to save you by sheer kitsch. I followed oddly-shaped footprint stickers on the carpet, hoping they would lead me to an exit door. Did I just pass a ceramic asparagus ornament?

I passed dozens in red aprons, marked as Stage III, terminal. They are here a full 365 days a year. One stood forlorn near a hot dog service.  Another moved boxes, more boxes, ever more boxes. Their eyes were like those of Yukon Cornelius or Charlie-in-the-Box. Flat glazed discs.

All the occupations were here.  Nurses, firefighters, teachers, construction workers, each with personalized ornaments: “Dentists get to the root of it” dangling from vinyl pine needles and tinsel.

My friend had vanished in a nest of Easter plush toys and I thought that I might go back for her, but I knew it was too late.  The PA announced a video of the “Amazing World of BD” which would begin in a few moments. I wondered if the condition was Bavarian as I abandoned my friend.  But the footprints only led to a restroom, and a child leading her mother by the hand said, “We need this, mommy!” And she pointed to a $75 Victorian-facsimile doll marked “Collectible.”

Turtledoves and false beards, six foot stockings and inflatable snowpeople. Brenda Lee and the Mormon Tabernacle. A  30 foot styrofoam snowtown with little plastic swans which magnetically drag themselves across a plastic pond. In one remote corner of the southwest of the building, a shelf which labeled itself “Religious.”

I heard a moan behind me: male or female, in bliss or despair, I was not sure. It was asylum, but I had found an Exit sign. My skin itched. My calves seized up. 

Despair. My Visa card appeared. Merry merry february…