Monday, June 26, 2006

of the dreams washed away 1

Dreams of flooding. I think it must have been yet another of those rooms in my old house that keep sprouting anew in my dreams. There is a second floor on top of the floor upstairs which did not exist and could never have existed, but there there are a couple of rooms which I have never seen and at least one where I have been -last night, at any rate. This was the room where the walls were partly translucent blue and white plastic and they were getting waterlogged, bulging outwards, the carpet was soggy and at the end of the room the water was rising. I was trying to pick up the guitars and electronic stuff lying on the floor, disconnecting them and putting them in a safe place but there were too many of them and the water was rising quickly. I could see it sloshing about in one corner, there was a drain there but it didn't seem to be able to take the water, or else it was blocked. Then she (but who was she?) told me I had to break the blue and white pillar in front of me. I thought that would accelerate the flooding but she assured me it wouldn't , It broke beautifully in two, sparkles glinting on the broken edges. Water came out of it, which alarmed me but then it stopped and so did the flooding.

The room was already inundated, though; the greenish-grey cement floor seemed to glimmer and wave under the water at almost ankle level. I thought I'd seen a little fish, slithery and silver, sliding past under my foot. I thought of all the diseases that are water borne that you could catch from what seemed to be quite clean water but I knew couldn't be. She said 'you'll be ok'. After a pause, she spoke again 'well, i know you won't be ok in the end, none of us will, but you'll be ok for now...'. Then, for the first time, I saw her eyes. Green and aquatic. That little fish could have swum in there, I would have sworn I'd fleetingly seen it dart across the green sea behind those eyes. I looked out the window as it suddenly got darker, the fat black clouds were grazing the edge of the sun. Not sure why this became ominous. I had some memory of something worse happening in this room -which couldn't be as I had never before been here, to this part of the house. Or had I?

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Downstream

There is a train that takes me where I have to go. The train goes South and then East, to a land that I know well but one to which I have never been. To get to the train, though, I have to either go to the ghost bus station or to the strange underground interchange. This is what I've chosen to do today, so as I am approaching my stop I get ready, careful not to forget my guitar or my bags. The tube train is something I had not seen before, a double -decker carriage. It is a bit awkward to approach the doors with the stuff I'm carrying with all these people in the way. Now on the platform. I look for the grey escalators but they're out of action again, I'll have to walk across the platforms, under the arches, across the track to the platform for the main line trains going South and East. We actually had to walk across the track, the grey paint on the metal work, the big rivets sticking out of the metal rails, the crunchy gravel underfoot, the deadly third rail, crimson red. Then we learnt that there was a pedestrian subway.. Never mind, here comes the train. It is another double-decker but quite different, much bigger. I jump on it and feel observed. I'm not wearing any distinctive clothing, I've left my black trench-coat and boots in my case, which is this unwieldy bag. My guitar is in plain sight, though, or its case is, which does seem to attract attention in the way of furtive sideglances. I have to remember to take it with me, I must not forget. I have some vague memory that I have done this in a similar circumstance, or something like the same circumstance in another instance of this world, in another throw of the dice -can't explain it any better.

I get off the train and find myself in this which is supposed to be the bus station, not the train station. I need the train -or the bus, going North, but cannot find the right place and am not sure how to look for it. There's a bus over there, at least it is facing in the right direction. I will take that. It is a red bus, like a London bus, with numbers in yellow indicating the route. I hear my footsteps, my boots clip-clop on the cobblestones. I am very, very lost....

to be continued -possibly.