Taking our time before it's through
Passing our days in Ocean's sister
Think I'm returning to Peru.
Wish that I never came here
They can't pronounce my name here.
Everyone asks me, "Where's Peru?"
Woke with the Phil Manzanera song flowing through my head.
In my dream, my friend Joe said he couldn't come over today as he was taking his boys to Peru. Was going to drive there in the squareback; He figured little Joe would sleep most of the way there. I asked, "Do you have a visa?" "A what?" "Permission to enter the country?" "Mol!" He said, "It's just Peru!" "Joe! Do you know where Peru is?" "Sure I do, it's just down south right?" At this point I realize there's a girl involved, and she's sitting on the other side of the room, looking hard at me, becoming angry.
I pull up a map on my computer, like no computer I saw before. I hold a metal object in my hand, some kind of a guide tool for the display. If I move it closer to the screen, we zoom in, farther away, we zoom out. I locate Peru, it's landlocked in the middle of South America. I zoom out awkwardly, I'm having a hard time controlling the view, but I manage to show him the whole of the western hemisphere, getting California, Central America and South America up on the screen at once. "Oh, wow! Mol!" He's shocked at the distance. "It'll take you at least two days to drive there man." I say with sympathy, supressing the panic I feel that he'd try this. "Mol." He says again, sadly, takes me in his arms and kisses me long and hard with loving passion. I feel like crying, and kiss him back with all I feel for him, this man I've loved for twenty years now. "This is the trip I promised the boys, to make up for last year." he says. We both know he can't go to Peru. The woman gets up and leaves, disgusted.
I wake up.
In Peru we've lenghtened the day.
In Peru we've strenghtened the dollar.
There are mountains piercing our skies
And the ocean at our shores.
I will save up all of my wages
Even retail crummy cosmetics.
I will mark my passage in stages
As the winter slips away.
( Eno sings it. It's on Diamond Head. )