Try to understand your Wild Things

Thanksgiving Dinner, which I kept in some moderation, actually.

Out in the back yard with some people, maybe a party. We hear a big crash out on the street, and I think that as a FM I'd best go try to help. I run out, and for a moment, there is a silver Mustang, nose to nose against an old tan Volvo. But by the time I get over there, the Mustang is gone. A middle aged woman is with the Volvo, more frustrated than hurt, the Mustang took off. I kind of gather that the crash was her fault, so I surmise that the Mustang must have taken off for some extreme reason, which I explain as "Either they have no insurance papers, or their car is full of drugs."

I go off, maybe in search of the silver car. I come to a library/community center. The Volvo woman is there, seated in a chair. I try to sit and talk to her about it, but soon there is a crowd of my friends, and she is uncomfortable. She leaves. My friends are really there to perform a sort of ritual. I, along with Shannon Tebay & Fredo Lucero from the diner are selected to be the primary players. They blindfold us, and we join hands. Then they begin to dance and weave around us, a sort of living geometry and seance. I comment to Fredo that "I don't like to fuck around with this sort of thing."

The ritual changes, and we are put into costume. I am dressed as a sort of crazy old Japanese woman. I have a helmet or headdress that is two wide straps of metal (about 6 inches wide) covered in black lace. One strap goes over the top of my head, the other forward around the lower half of my face. My mouth and tongue are forced up beneath it, and I keep licking it. I'm dressed in a black lace tunic, and they give me a weird...wand? But it's something I think that a flapper would carry as an accessory. Someone takes red paint and a sopping dauber and splashes it across my face. I head out through the large park that surrounds the library.

No longer disguised as an old woman in red and black, I come upon some Wild Things, and I'm talking with them, learning. Someone forces the big, ugly one to crush and eat these small varmints. I realize only too late that they are his young, and he's being forced to kill them and eat them. Another small group of Wild Things nearby also has young, but they are allowed to care for them. The Wild Things with me are angry, especially the big one, and acting up, becoming dangerous. The others are in good spirits, well mannered. I understand why, and I'm heartbroken.