by Rob Perez

The Opening Ceremony

Maybe I was on drugs. Maybe I fell asleep and dreamt the whole thing. Maybe I wandered into someone else’s dream. Maybe I wandered into someone else’s dream who was on drugs.

I hesitated to write about this because I’m still not sure it really happened. I mean, I don’t remember taking an edible, but maybe the first thing people do after taking an edible is forget they took an edible. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Not enough to do a YouTube search. Because I don’t need to know it happened like this. I’m just saying it sure seemed to happen like this.

After doing a few dishes, I thought I was joining the family to watch a movie in the living room. Only when I got there did I realize the Winter Olympics was on.

I figured that was fine because Olympians are usually pretty quick about doing whatever they’re doing. Winter Olympians even more so. Ice has a way of hurrying things along. But then I realized: this wasn’t the Olympics. This was the opening ceremony to the Winter Olympics. So I settled in.

Women — who I assume were from the future — walked out holding placards that looked like they’d been scribbled ten seconds earlier. They introduced countries. Some were real. Others, I assume, were aspirational.

Liechtenstein, for example. I’m fairly certain that’s either a law firm or a moderately successful contemporary artist. I do not believe it is a country.

Then came the procession of seven athletes, who strutted, danced, and, in many cases, recorded the proceedings on their phones. So now we were recording athletes recording us recording them?

This is the part where the announcers — clearly reading something — inform us that this unlikely nation is quietly a powerhouse in curling, which, for those unfamiliar, is a sport involving brooms.

Incidentally, I yield to no man in my ability to make fun of curling. I’m fairly certain I could do it in my sleep. (Insert curling joke here.) But this whole thing was so disorienting, I couldn’t quite bring myself to the task.

Then a different lady from the future, dressed entirely in white — why do people in the future wear sunglasses at night? — introduced a country I’m familiar with. I normally make jokes about Canada without breaking stride. But 200 smiling Canadians sporting maple leaves unmoored me. And since 200 athletes move more slowly than seven, I became uncomfortably familiar with the Canadian delegation.

Another futuristic female tested my geography skills with a placard: Andorra. Seven more athletes — who may or may not have been from Star Wars — walked the walk.

That’s when they cut to a performance by an opera singer who’s blind. Then there was another singer who could see. Then there was Charlize Theron doing some kind of dramatic reading about competition that perhaps was written in English, translated to Italian, and then translated back into English. It may also have been a monologue from Mad Max: Fury Road.

All of this was interspersed with someone jogging tentatively with the Olympic torch. I thought these were elite athletes. I understand this run isn’t for time. Still. I assume they rehearse the handoffs, but every single one looked like the first attempt.

This brings me to the Jamaica national bobsleigh team. They are, of course, a metaphor for any tropical country achieving great things — even in winter. Hence, Disney gave the world Cool Runnings. On the other hand, their existence does raise a quiet question: if a group of elite athletes from a warm island can take up bobsledding and compete with the rest of the world, what exactly is this sport?

Opening ceremonies are no longer ceremonies. They’re competitions — not against other nations, but against other ceremonies. Each host city tries to out-drone, out-laser, and out-air-dancer the last one.

They aspire to acknowledge the past, honor the present, and predict the future — all before the first skier has fallen down a mountain. They want to recognize every country while subtly promoting the superiority of their own — to be inclusive and dominant, ancient and modern.

So did it happen? Was I asleep? Did I wander into someone else’s dream? Is North Macedonia really a country? I’m still not sure. But I do know that several times that evening, someone tried to sell me a Visa card. And at least that felt real.