Sunday, April 30, 2006

early dream of flying..

I open my eyes to the soft darkness of the room that I share, strangely, with my mother and sister. I'm slowly floating towards the ceiling; it is only this, the ceiling, that stops me. I can see my sister slowly floating up as well, even though if I look down I see her lying on her bed, sweetly asleep. For some reason I cannot see them both clearly at the same time: when I see her face on the pillow the floating figure becomes blurry. I decide to dive downwards It is an exhilarating sensation, this reversal of gravity that now softly pulls me up again towards the ceiling. I reach a corner, the same corner where I had spotted during the day a hole from which a big spider had come out, but there is no hole or spider now, I dive down again, as I see my sister doing the same at the other end of the room. My mother sighs in her sleep, down there below; a moon beam pierces through the window as I dive down again. Bliss.

Saturday, April 22, 2006

gateway

There is a gate between dream and reality, a very thin passage that communicates between the two. One can peek through it sometimes, but almost never can get through. Sometimes I would wake up in the night, panting and sweating, still with my heart beating almost through my mouth but also relieved to have escaped. Then I would close my eyes and see it. It was still on the chase and was still there waiting for me to fall asleep again. It was standing by the entrance it couldn't go through, shapeless but malevolent. I would open my eyes, in terror, get up with difficulty, my heart still beating hard, my breathing still laboured, and stagger to the fridge to get a glass of water, a glance through the window at the trees swaying outside, the calm of the night in this safe island in the world of awake.

I would go back to bed, look out my window again, play cards on the handheld computer, read a little and finally begin to fall asleep. To wake again in terror: it was still there, the other side of the door, it was still there waiting for me. And this time it was probing the gate, trying to find a way to get through to the world of reality. I was not going to get any sleep that night.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

over time 1 (1985)




This was part of a composition workshop, the graphic was supposed to be put to music in some way. 1985.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

in circles

I was in a large room, a sort of dance hall. I knew what it was but now I have no idea how I knew, since I had never been in any such place in my life. It was a vast place and there were people dressed in night wear, men in tails, women with pearls. They all looked so similar and I had to look for my father who was in there somewhere. i thought it would be easy as he would be the only one dressed in a normal suit and tie instead of that sort of gear. But I couldn't find him and I started to think I would never find him. Then I thought -I didn't know where the entrance to the hall was, and I could see none. And the thought arose: I couldn't remember when we had got there or how we had arrived... had no idea of where we were and and there were no people my age. That's when I noticed the faces of the people dancing. They all had acquired a pasty complexion and glassy eyes -or did they look like that all along? That's when I panicked. That was, also, when they started to slowly spin, like wind-up dolls, slowly and in synchrony, while I ran and screamed and screamed...

Friday, April 14, 2006

distant mirror of time 1


While I looked around, in the silent void, and I saw... myself staring back at me, from the other side of the chasm of time and space and memory....

drawing by Flavio Matani. 1986
all contents c) flavio matani

Saturday, April 08, 2006

dream cast in fog

dream of Avenida Sucre, in a fog. I've come out of school but it is a sort of twilight outside; I have to find my friends at the bus stop but do not find them. it could be because the friends I'm looking for I will not meet for another twenty five years and haven't been born yet, but then how do I know, and how is it that I realise this is the case? I go past the doorstop with the red light-bulb at the top of the stairs and cast a curious and guilty glance and quickly walk away.

I'm now walking on the traffic island. There is no traffic, there are lots of people walking on the street on the Avenida. Feels like a long time has passed but there is still that dusk quality to the air. Up the hill there are the Superbloques, the tower blokcs in 23 de Enero. They don't seem to be grimy or covered in graffiti today, the mist gives them a sort of supernatural quality.

I think I can go through a short cut to my house but it is not one that I'm very familiar with. Go into the industrial estate and walk and walk.. and it all is no longer familiar, I don't know where I am. Where is the way out of here, where is the way out...