Strange Passage by Matt Southern & Lost Gold

The boy lives with his grandma, a few houses down from his best friend Amy, and right next door to Mr. Job, who lives alone in a white house.

I suspect there’s more to know about what goes on in Mr. Job’s house. What is he going to do with all the dirt in his front yard? Why does he never wave to neighbors walking by? How long has he had a hole in his living room floor, and why does it keep getting bigger? Scraps of intel gathered from a hiding place using grandma’s binoculars offer more questions than answers.

We sing: down down baby down by the roller coaster…and scream: ollie ollie oxen free…miss mary mack’s heart drips like wax sealed envelopes returned to senders mistaken silent offenders hear the television whirring help me out ma im always bleeding

I have a recurring dream in which I’m walking down a long passageway flanked by doors that are all closed. Each passageway is divided by a hall door that opens to an identical set of doors on the other side. After an endless walk I find one door on the right slightly ajar and a blue fog of light creeps out around the edge of the opening. I don’t know if I should look inside or keep going past it, but my strongest urge is to turn back and return to where I started.

There’s a distance between where you started and where you are that isn’t easily divisible into equal increments. Certain people or events or interactions can cause huge leaps in your own development while other times your life feels like you are treading water endlessly. These are stories of the leaps. These are stories about childhood and the passage between those mythic years into the sobering reality of where you are now.

Keep the rattle-trap humming...