Dreams have always intrigued and mystified me so I thought it would be interesting to 'collect' dreams- write down my own and ask others to write down theirs-and re-write them as half stories/soliloquies.
(if you have any interesting dreams please share..!)
'I dream, and who is dreaming me?'
Vermin
I thought, so this is the new way of doing it then? Go
through years of trying to sell your house and then be expected to clear it out
yourself?
In fairness, I had volunteered. I like to feel useful. But
walking around the bare rooms I realised I was not up for the job. Something in
me couldn’t say goodbye.
What a dump, I thought. How did it get like this? The house
showed its age, I wondered how I’d managed to live in a derelict building for
so long. Sentiment, I suppose…
I walked to the bathroom, a big gaping room now, stark and
ugly. The only thing left was a cast iron bath. I grappled at possibilities of
trying to move it, and got frustrated. At closer inspection, it was in two
halves. Even harder to move! Leaning against one half was a crumbling washing
machine, the sort you see in skips. Inside it was hollow- a metal carcass-
something had gotten to it. Termites? Metal termites?
On account of the new owner’s renovation, the walls had been
stripped to their foundations, showing the wooden boards that held them up. I
was perplexed to see little white dots on the remains of the walls. It looked
like someone had gone round squeezing tubes of decorating icing. An ancient way
of plastering, perhaps? Don’t be silly, I thought. And yet there was no explanation.
What I saw next threw me sideways. A blue and purple lizard,
huge and dazzling, crawled up the wall. I had never seen such a thing! I was
taken aback. The colours were so vivid, deep amethyst and sapphire, it looked
exquisite. I was almost scared, such a rare, special thing could not be dealt
with lightly.
In shock, I looked down to find the floor crawling with
these strange lizards. A chill came over me as I remembered the eaten washing
machine. Did these lizards have a taste for metal? It could explain the bath in
two pieces…
My first thought was to stamp on them, but then I became
conflicted. Were they dangerous? Did they need to be destroyed? They slithered
at my feet, a whole sea of them, and a part of me wanted to collect them, to
protect them.
Those creatures, I wondered why they had appeared so
suddenly. It didn’t fit with my logic but they existed all the same.
The White Cage/The
Wave
We had been caught. I don’t know how. We hadn’t even planned
on killing anyone, it wasn’t an outcome we had hoped for. I look at Margaret
and a panicky wave sloshes through me, infecting me. A poisonous injection of
Shit What Have We Done.
Oh shit, he’s dead!
I look at Margaret, she knows our fate just as well as I.
How did it come to this? Murderers! I keep thinking, I don’t want to go to
jail. It’s always been a fear of mine, the big unthinkable. Locked up in your
own mind.
Next thing we’re on a train. It feels like we’re on our way
to a concentration camp. We are on our way to be questioned and doom glows
around us like some perverse halo.
We walk into the interrogation room which must have been
borrowed from a film. Dingy, basic, spotlight on desk. Our mothers are there. I
feel ashamed. There is a point of pure desperation where I try to get myself out
of it, conjure up excuses like a magic trick. Too late.
We are taken to a prison, Margaret and I. It is in Japan, a
new state of the art, high-tech young person’s prison. Fairly pleasant as
prisons go. Everything is white- the exterior is cubic with many different
levels and pathways. It is maze-like. No matter how minimalist and modern it
looks, I still can’t contemplate being stuck in here. We know it will be for
seven years. I stab in the dark to find something hopeful about the situation.
It is visiting hours. I’m outside on the prison grounds, a
big field like a football pitch. My family are there, the mood is forlorn. I
look up and gasp- a huge wave, a tsunami, is opening its big wet mouth, ready
to gulp us all. Everyone screams and runs. It’s terrifying, one of those do or
die moments. The tsunami goes straight over the prison, straight over us. We
get soaked.
I scan the devastation for my family, I find my father and
sister. I am hysterical by this point. We look everywhere for my mother and
brother and eventually, thank God, we find them. We are all together, all safe.
The family is completed. Nothing better, is there?
Reality’s ugly penny drops. Not such a happy ending after
all. I have to go back to prison, serve my time for a crime I didn’t even know
how I’d committed. That bastard wave hadn’t even managed to destroy the prison.
And you call yourself a tsunami? Tshhh…
As I am walked to my cell a determination comes over me, a
steely survival instinct that convinces me I will get through this, that I
should make a lemonade, however bitter, from all these lemons that life has
suddenly thrown at me.
I vow to make friends- they can’t all be bad, can they? I
have been branded a ‘criminal’ but I’m not a bad person…And what about all
those books I hadn’t read? The greats, the classics? Maybe I could turn this to
my advantage, these seven years in this white cage.
The Brown Line
The tube had changed since the last time I’d been on it. It
was all over-ground, and London had become a rural, coastal stretch of wind and
sleepy houses. I was on the brown line, Bakerloo, on the way to a new gallery
that had just opened. I enjoyed this sort of time to myself, solitary
travelling always gives me a welcome window of contemplation.
I was sitting there, in the quiet, when I noticed what was
sitting in front of me.
He was the strangest looking man I had ever seen. He was
enormous, about the size of two people, so he must have been taking up two
seats. His head, especially, looked as if it might topple off it was so big. He
reminded me of a sumo wrestler. He was certainly foreign (if not alien) and had
a friendly, serene face, with dark hair tied up in one of those buns. I
realised with some unease that he was not fully dressed. His sloppy belly was
hanging over him, yet he didn’t seem embarrassed or apologetic. In fact he was
talking amicably to the nervous Englishman sat next to him. That always made me
angry, the cold arrogance of the English…He clearly didn’t want to be next to
the sumo man- at first I deplored his reluctance to chat along.
Then, my eyes travelled downwards. The sumo man was wearing
a nappy type contraption. I could see that his arse hole was on show, and a
huge wedge of shit was stuck on the way out of it. It was rectangular in shape,
and revolted me. I forgave the Englishman in one swift second, as I too would
try and avert my eyes elsewhere to avoid conversation with the strange naked
man, who had such rectal dysfunction. I was glad that my stop was near- I was
getting off in ‘Bath’- which was in London now. I told you the tube had
changed.
Four Moons
I understand now the vividness of paintings.
I was in a field, it was a late dusk, and we were camping.
It was a high up field on the foothills of some mountains, and in front of us
laid a great vista. It was similar to Barcelona because it was by the sea, and
bore the same sandy orange coloured buildings.
I was astonished by the sight, humbled by it. The sky had
never looked so real yet so far from reality. It was a rich midnight blue, a
velvety texture, royal in its depth. Placed in a row towards the bottom of the
horizon were four yellow moons- full and beaming. Thin, wavy clouds weaved in
and out behind the moons, confusing night with day.
I rushed into our tent and exclaimed-
“Quick, come and look at the sky! It looks like a Dali
painting!”
I was excited, it felt like a solar eclipse level of
occasion.
As we came out to see, a huge zig-zagging lightning bolt
cracked through the sky. It was godly, profound. It hit into a large satellite
pole which then immediately caught alight- a big burning Christmas tree. In one
swooping action, the fire spread to the whole left hand side of the city that I
had so admired. It took a second.
Such destruction in a heartbeat. At first I was scared that
we might be in danger, and then I realised we were on the right side, the safe
side. All we could do was watch the four moons and the orange glow beneath.
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