Roy Orbison wrapped in clingfilm

The dream starts the usual way, with the arrival of a mysterious man with dark glasses, dressed in all black from head to toe. I know who it is. We all recognize him. It is the legendary singer Roy Orbison, alive and in his prime.

Roy Orbison says ‘Let us say my name together’ and we all say ‘Roy Orbison’. Then he turns to me and says ‘Thank you, but please, call me Roy.”

‘You bet”, I say. The others who had recognized him and spoken his name with me disappear.

With charisma to spare, Roy Orbison says ‘I trust you know what I need.’

‘Where would you like to be cling-wrapped?’ I ask.

‘Around the ankles, to start’, says Roy. ‘Then work your way up toward my head. You can cover up my mouth with the cling-film, but leave the nostrils free. Appreciate it.’

‘You bet’, I say. ‘Please stand still, Roy.’

He towers above me, sharp, against the flat gray sky. His pants are within a foot of my face. I see his matte black slacks have been recently ironed. They smell like fabric softener.

‘I no longer belong to this time’, says Roy. ‘The space is the same, more or less, but the time is no longer right.’

The clingfilm unfurls around Roy Orbison’s legs in tight overlapping layers. I am efficient, wrapping firmly but not unreasonably so. There is a reason Roy comes to me for clingwrap. There are reasons. I pull the plastic counter-clockwise up and around his tibias, fibulas, patellas, femurs, up toward the hips.

The others returned, and this time without promption we all spoke his name again, ‘Roy Orbison’. Roy is on stage while I work diligently underneath his gesturing arms.

‘The elephant in the room is the clingfilm. I’ve come to rely on it. It preserves me in my current state - what I still perceive to be my current state - including my voice, my undeniable set of pipes.’

Roy sings his heart out.

I see them joyfully lost in Roy’s dream as I pass behind and in front of him with the clingfilm. I pin his arms down to his sides, keeping his hands pressed hard against his pockets. Roy Orbison, outside of time but inside our space, is still the man in black, covered in a shifting transparent film gloss sheen like oil in water.

He stops singing when the clingwrap reaches his throat.

‘One last thing’, he says, ‘as I drift away into my magic night, I must trust you to wake me up when you feel the time is right. Perhaps in a different place.’

The others disappear. It’s just me and Roy again. I think I am about to say something, but as my mouth opens he says ‘Also, again, just a reminder about not covering up the nostrils. Love ya.’

Roy Orbison nods in a way that seems to end an era. I cover his mouth with clingfilm, then carefully cover the nose and cheek area while leaving a small gap for the nostrils. The top of a dome is a difficult area for any clingwrapper, and the top of Roy Orbison’s head is no exception. Nonetheless I quickly and skillfully finish covering up the top of his head. I tear the last of the clingwrap off with the sawtoothed edge of the dispenser, securing the film to itself with a modest but sufficent slab of transparent shipping tape. I place my finger near the nostril gap and feel Roy exhale.

We wait for the right time.