Sleep Patterns

By Merchant Ships

On For Cameron

Released on July 8, 2010

173K Views

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[Spoken Intro]

September 9, 2001

Gary and I were skating at a hospital on top of a huge hill overlooking a valley

An ambulance came and took out a dead woman

Gary asked me why she wasn't moving or blinking

They hadn't closed her eyes yet

She must have died on the way, a car full of family and friends came in with the ambulance

They were all crying and hugging each other

One woman screamed hysterically and grabbed at the woman's body, asking her to wake up

I had to tell Gary that her soul went to Heaven

I didn't believe a word of it, but I knew it'd be easier for him to understand

Two days from now, at 9 AM, two planes will hit the World Trade Center, killing over 3,000 people

I will tell Gary that there is no God, and all of this is meaningless

But today, there is a God, and he has a plan for him

He doesn't know it, but a year from now, our family will be torn apart

And I will move far away and won't see or talk to him for five years

And as we sit on the hood of our car, the sun goes down and he asks me what I want out of my life

I tell him I don't know


[Chorus]

On and on we run away

From the things we are afraid of

On and on we run away

From the things we are afraid of

On and on we run away

From the things we are afraid


[Spoken Outro]

I don't tell him about the dream I had the night before

Where I'm riding in a car full of strangers and singing to some song I've never heard

And smoking a cigarette and we swerve off the road and hit a tree

I go through the windshield and hit the edge of a fence, dislocating my jaw and flipping me into a wall

Where my neck is broken, and my skull is fractured, I bleed to death in excruciating pain

I will have this dream periodically until I meet all of the strangers one-by-one

Introducing them all to each other until we are a close group of friends

I will set these events in motion, and I will die

But today, in the warm light of the sunset, I don't see it

I just see the sunset, I smile back and shake my head

I have absolutely no idea, I am afraid