Delora's Brain Malfunction

Multiple Shadow House photo by Olafur Eliasson

Delora discovers a seriously, serious problem with her brain function while driving with friends to a cute little village north of Madrid called Patones.

Delora is having a discussion about travel advisories in foreign countries and how one little incident can trigger a warning from the U.S. State Department.  Delora decides to delight her friends with an example of this by telling a story about a guy she knows who ran a travel business in Africa. Delora recounts the story of how one day this friend was traveling with his clients in this African country when they came upon a group of poachers. (All true.) They stopped the bus, and the men with guns fired a warning shot outside the window of the bus and it inadvertently hit a woman inside the bus and killed her.

Like in Babylon, Delora's friend asks?

Delora continues telling her riveting story, while at the same time thinking, Babylon, Africa? She refuses to embarrass her friend regarding her faulty geography, because she is concentrating so hard that she can see the story while she's telling it!  She recreates the dusty bus in her mind's eye and sees the woman who's been shot and the man next to her, who looks alot like -- wait a minute -- Brad Pitt! Sitting right next to the woman from Southport, Connecticut?

Sensing Delora's confusion, the friend gently utters the word, Babylon, and Delora's realizes that her brain is now mixing reality with scenes from movies!

Delora and her friends laugh uproariously until the windows fog on the car. But when Delora is awake playing Sudoku in the middle of the night, she wonders about the tiny brain tumor that may be forming and causing her to break from reality.  Maybe that Jamon isn't as full of Omega three fatty acids as those farmers claim it to be!  What if there's a miniature fat-ball restricting blood flow to the region of the brain that distinguishes between film clips and reality?  Delora decides that she must be very careful about which movies she chooses to view from now on.  Nothing funky from the science fiction or horror genres.  After all, Delora must keep her wits about her.  Tomorrow, she has to stand on a balcony in Buenos Aires and sing, "Don't Cry for Me Argentina", while looking good for her husband, Antonio Banderas.