Tuesday, November 17, 2009

dream of the end being nigh...

The sun beams through the window. I get blinded in the glare while my pupil plays his Brazilian piece

The dream was very long and, as is often the case, the beginning was lost in the haze between coming back to bed in the darkness after the increasingly more frequent semi-sonambulic nocturnal excursions to the loo. I didn't know I had to get up in three hours' time.

By the end of it I was with these group of friends whose face has now been erased by the morning soap and coffee. We were waiting for the bombs to drop. We were gathered in what could have been a large school or community sports centre, lots of very large glass windows, functional pine furniture, a stack of wooden frames at one end of the large hall. The person in charge, a young man neatly dressed, if quite out of fashion, in a suit and tie, kept saying that the end was imminent but we weren't to switch on the TV sets or the radio. This was forbidden as it would be a transgression of some sort and would impair our judgment by the higher powers, or something like that. Also there was something about the news being made to hide what was happening so as not to alarm people although our fate was decided. That made me suspicious. Why would he not want us to hear news about what was going on. A girl had a mobile phone and was talking (surreptitiously, I don't think she was supposed to be able to do that) to someone outside. "You're still there -the bombs haven't dropped yet, then". She's covering her mouth and the phone with her hand and talking in a soft but anxious voice. I look out the window: nothing stirs in the landscape. No sign of the flying bombs. He is on the podium again, telling people to be brave. Death will not defeat us, the ever after awaits us. The enemies shall not prevail. What am I doing here, I think to myself. Who is this guy, did I at some point believe all that claptrap? There must be some kind of way out. Maybe the bombs are really on their way but I am not better off here than anywhere else.