Weird confusing nonsense

07-09-06 Dreams

I’ve rented a house with Louis, Dino and someone else (probably me as I can’t recognise them). We move all of our stuff in and go for a walk to get a sense of the area. We’re escorted by some local youth who shows us the sights and talks constantly. On the way back I suddenly realise that I haven’t unpacked my cat! I rush back to let her out of her box. She’s fine, but pleased to be unpacked. I open one of the giant glass doors that make up one wall of my room and let her into the garden. There are eight stone slabs arranged in a rectangle fringed by grass; the other third of the garden is just a tangled mess. The doors don’t seem to lock, there are three panels, with thick glass toggles between them but I can’t see how they either hold them closed or lock them. I wander into the lounge where someone’s skinning up. Then we have breakfast together.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Christmas at school, I and some of the other teachers are watching the students come through the main doors. There are very obvious teacher cliques, some groups of staff also enter and exit without speaking to us. We’re just mocking the kids quietly to amuse ourselves. Then the youngest teacher there comes along bearing a tray of mince pies. He seems tiny, with the most precise tiny triangular grey beard. He has no nose, instead there are several lines of writing, like a tattooed moustache, but they can’t be read. He’s trying really hard to fit in, but we point out that the kids wouldn’t even recognise a mince pie, let alone eat one. So we eat them instead.

Class starts so I wander the corridors looking for truants or a rogue lesson to deliver. I come across a group of kids eyeing the video games on sale in the entertainment section of the school. I strike up a conversation about some strategy game they’re interested in, although they can hardly believe that anyone as old as I am actually plays games. I tell them about how you have to design your own robot and then stamp on things. There’s also a brilliant looking pirate game for PS2, although it’s a completely different game if you get it for the PC.

I walk home from school with a friend. Up a long road ahead of us is another friend from the staffroom. She hasn’t seen us, so we follow her to see what she’s up to. She goes into an alleyway where a car is parked and greets the man getting out. They kiss passionately, but stop when she notices us. She seems very annoyed, perhaps we’ve caught her out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

At the top of a hill, overlooking a big sandstone quarry, we’re making a film. The director is leaning over the edge, looking down at the stage below. He wants a smooth, rolling shot from this position down to the actors below. We’re discussing how to best achieve that with the cranes and cameras we have when a lady and her child approach the director. She asks him if they can have his autograph. The boy explains that he’s a ‘mesolyte’ (or something like that) and that if the director likes, he can ‘do something’. The boy looks at the cliff and recites some weird doggerel poetry.

The next I know, the cast (and some of the teachers) are standing close together in a small shiny blue room. There’s a slightly raised stage at the front, on which the boy stands. We’re all waiting for him. He raises his hands like a puppeteer and the crowd respond. Alison (?) tried to get into the heart of the crowd “it's the only way he’ll let us go”. I say “hell no” and drag her out as the crowd begins to dance under the boy’s instruction. It’s really creepy and the rhythmic dancing and the sound it makes is oddly compelling. We go round the corner into a corridor that runs along the back of that room. There are a few other people who have escaped the dancing for now, but it’s awfully tempting and there seems little alternative.

Frustrated, I kick at the wall. It breaks, like sheets of safety glass it crunches and folds like it’s backed with plastic. When I stop the stuff heals back up, but it feels important. I get the others to kick and hammer at it, we start chanting to help resist the puppeteer’s song and smash the blue glass walls. It keeps healing up on us, bit I’m able to grab the bottom before it does and climb under it.

Everything is very dark and quiet for a while, and then I’m wet. I appear to be in the sea, although I don’t have to swim or tread water to keep afloat or move around. Not far away from me there’s a shape which keeps reappearing out of the water, grabbing a swimmer and disappearing again. It should be a shark, but it looks more like it’s been hastily disguised with a cloud of spray paint in a low quality Photoshop.

There are lots of other people in the water, some on rafts. Those on particularly small rafts, barely larger than their own feet tend to be singing. There are a few people on top of a vehicle having a lengthy discussion about why smaller format video games machines tend to have the largest packaging. I climb on top of a camper van and try to help some of the swimmers to safety before the obscured shark gets them, although it doesn’t feel like a massive priority. Another man is hurling DVD cases and tin toy boxes into the water to support the swimmers. One of them is shouting “I’m Ally McBeal’s husband” repeatedly. Someone asks me who he is and I reveal in a conspiratorial manner that it’s Ally McBeal’s husband. The comedians Webb and Mitchell are dressed in unidentifiable costumes, thrashing about pretending to be kept afloat by tiny objects.

It all fades away and I wake up with a headache lying in a broken book case. People are sprawled across cushions, furniture and the floor amid a range of household and party debris. I realise that of course, it was a party – we were all so wasted we thought we were at sea and needed the cushions for buoyancy. The hosts are attempting to tidy up, so I lend them a hand by washing the bowls and things used for floating. There are two other TV personalities there who explain that their Fringe show went really well, “no laughs, no slaps – definitely an improvement”.

I sit down and try to explain this dream to Ian, but am unable to convince him it was a dream and instead say that he was one of the housemates to begin with, which makes him listen.

CSI and witchcraft from 04-09-06

I’m standing on top of a multi-storey car park with half of the CSI: Miami team. It’s late afternoon, and the wind is blowing Horatio Kane’s hair about wildly. It feels as if this is just before shooting, so I guess he’s really David Caruso. He’s striding about looking concerned, peering into car windows. Across the building from us there's a late-night café-bar, all green wood and dark windows. Horatio (definitely H now) sends me and Sarah (from CSI) to go and cause a diversion in the bar – he wants us to start a fight with some guys we can see in the front window. As we set off I can hear him say “it’s important that the new CSIs know how to head butt defensively”.

We get partway there before doubt kicks in and we go back to ask if he’s sure. He tells us “make them feel big, and then make yourself bigger; it’s something you have it within you to do”. This time we get inside and go up to the bar. I’m about to order a couple of beers when I realise we have no money, so I run out to Horatio again and ask to borrow a fiver (I’m very conscious that this is the wrong currency). Horatio tosses me his wallet, I’m rather smug with Sarah about having the boss’ wallet. We promptly forget about our purpose and drink instead.

After a few drinks we start talking to the other barflies. There are several city types we’re getting into heavy discussion with, but they lose interest when I say I don’t know London at all well. It’s very late by now, and Sarah has turned into Clayton. We’re asked to leave by the barman and rather sulkily go away. I realise there was some beer left in our bottles and go back to retrieve them.

It’s light outside, at about 3am, so we need to get a taxi, as I’ve still got Horatio’s wallet and we’re due in at work in the morning. We call for them, but they just go past us down the dark red corridors we’re in instead of streets. Then I attract the attention of a weird double-decker taxi. The driver can’t estimate either the distance or the fare when we tell her where we want to go, but we hop in anyway. I follow Clayton up the stairs then grab wildly for a railing. The second level is just a plank swinging around above the cab. Clayton explains that it takes a bit of getting used to.

The driver whips us through traffic, with us waving about, narrowly missing vans and walls. I can tell we’re getting closer to our destination when we go off the main road down a grassy trail. The driver talks to us about witchcraft and how dangerous the place we’re going is. When we get there she stops by a hedgerow. We all get out and she passes us rolls of green tissue paper to shred so that she can lay it all out on the ground in a criss-crossed square by the foot of the hedge. We bicker about the tissue that Clayton adds as it’s really more blue than green. Nonetheless she seems satisfied eventually and tosses a match on it. It all ignites and burns fiercely. When the smoke clears we’re standing at the base of a cliff.

A Bit of Murder - from 01-09-06

I’m living at my Dad's house. Clayton and I decide to go camping with our bicycles. When we get outside it’s raining, so we pull our hoods up and pedal away.

The place we’re camping in is inside what looks like an abandoned toy shop. The floor and shelves are covered in objects that almost look like toys, or might once have been playthings. We’re both really hungry and have forgotten to bring any supplies with us. There’s a guy asleep on the floor, might be homeless, but as soon as we realise there’s no food, Clayton pulls out a big knife and plunges it into the man’s throat. It’s taking ages for him to bleed to death, so I kneel behind his head and pull apart the gash in his neck with my hands. I can feel how wet and sticky the blood spurting over my fingers is as the man bubbles and twitches.

I pop back to Dad's to get a knife so we can chop him up. As I arrive the postman is laying our mail in the street. It’s an irritating habit he's gotten into lately, apparently because of the lengths of everyone’s drives. It really annoys me today though and we have a big argument shouting in the road. I scoop up the letters and go inside. Included is a new telephone and other bits for Dad. I get a knife and cycle off again.

By the time I meet Clayton again he’s finished mincing the corpse and we head off to the beach to set up the barbecue.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I climb down from the balcony and go into the foyer of a large building, where I’m joined by Kay. We go up the stairs and through a door with security glass into a small meeting room full of people arguing. Kay talks to the man behind the desk (we’re strangers to them) and she asks him some union-related questions. I start to lose interest in their conversation, I just hear snippets like ‘ha, my employer only give us this much’ and ‘outrageous!’

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Clayton and I have left the barbecue to warm up and are wandering around the port area. It’s full of warehouses which are closed and silent, next to colourful ‘surf’ restaurants made artfully of driftwood. We go through the alley next to one of these and find ourselves in a business park. It’s a pretty little grassed area with flower beds and miniature bridges over ponds and streams. There are platforms scattered around and up the walls on which business folk are conversing, drinking and eating. We go into one of the raised patios and chat with a very rich chief executive who’s impressed by our knowledge of beer and wine. He gives us a tour of the garden when he hears how much we like it.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I wake up riding my bicycle on Queens Road as I turn towards Padge Road. I realise Dino’s actually riding it, I’m just occupying the same space as him. I begin to panic, wondering where Clayton has gotten to. I try to call him on his mobile, but my new phone has only two numbers in it and neither are in our system of counting. Dino doesn’t have his number either.

Avoiding Work & Pat Roach

Dreams 22-08-06

I just don’t want to go to work, so I catch a train to Birmingham in hopes of seeing Marilyn at the bus station. I have no luck, but sense that I was very close – I did see someone who looked rather like her. I walk to Peterborough and then catch a train back to Nottingham from there.

I agonise over not going to work; I feel guilty and worried about how I’m going to explain it. It’s far too late to call in sick. So instead I just turn up and go right to my desk, initially ignoring my line manager entirely. Elaine is shocked that I just didn’t come into work – it’s very unlike me.

There’s a group meeting by Louis’ desk and Louise asks me why I wasn’t in that morning. I feign utter innocence and claim I’d had permission to take flexi. My total blankness when challenged seems to be accepted, though I sense some disappointment. .

I plan to go to lunch with Louis but first I have to shove a long cardboard box of files into the office. The files all look like software boxes, and I find my writing book nestled between them, which I retrieve. Elaine says there’s some kind of register we have to sign out on in a cupboard next to the toilets. There's nothing in there so, irritated, I scrawl my name on the wooden back of the cupboard and we leave.

There’s a long line of people coming into HQ standing in line along the grass bank that lines the building. We reach the traffic lights opposite Sainsbury's when Louis catches up. He says he knows a great pie place, not far!

It takes us five minutes to cross the road, which has very dense and fast traffic. We walk past a corner shop and turn up onto a very steep and winding country road. I complain about how far we’re going; Louis keeps saying ‘not far now’. It’s miles! Finally we reach the top of the hill where there’s a series of estate agents and the pie shop, and a dry-stone wall. They’re all closed.

At the end of the row is an expensive 80s-looking restaurant decked out in black and neon. We can’t afford that and we’re going to be late as it is. So we turn back and lope down the hill. We bounce past a newsagent with a pie in the window, so turn back and go inside. The pies all seem to be pain au chocolats though.

I get distracted by the t-shirts on sale by the door. One looks like mine, so I ask the owner. He says it is mine, I came in and took it off the previous week so they’ve added some panels and it’s now for sale. I choose a couple of bright silky tunic-shirts with some assistance from Marilyn (two for £11.99 cash, save £7), mainly to frustrate the fat guy rooting through the bargain bin. (I never do find my original t-shirt again though.)

~~~~~~~~~~~

We’re all playing computer games at a friend’s house. It’s all set up in the shower room, so we’re sitting on cushions on a tiled floor with the showers going over the screens. There are lots of fighting games and cool club lighting flashing through the steam. Someone starts showing the very weird videos they’ve been making. They seem disturbing, especially when people begin to act out what’s in the films, and that becomes what we’re watching – sex and violence. It all feels very uncomfortable, and not what should be in the shower at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m on set in a huge industrial warehouse that’s been adapted into several stages. We’re just scheduling the day’s shoot when there’s a cry from downstairs: “It’s Pat Roach!” There’s absolute chaos as everyone tries to put away props and anything that can be broken. I run downstairs and down the outside fire escape to find the roster which is kept on the wall and there is indeed some brutish marking on the form which I recognise as Pat’s.

Prison Train

Dreams 19-08-06

Dad takes my brother, sister and I to a theme park. Most of the rides and games are based on Playstation2 games like Soul Caliber, but towards the end of the day I find a simple-looking train ride. It’s an old fashioned train, about half scale except for its length – I can’t see the end of it. It hangs over a deep trench with a grass platform to one side on which I stand.

I can’t see any way to get inside, but it has some kind of gravity which allows me to stick to the side. Before it leaves it asks any passengers if they would like to pick blackberries. The platform is lined with bushes. I try to pick them as the train speeds up but the bushes are too prickly.

The train goes for maybe half a mile and then stops. It’s been quite a dull ride, so for the way back I crawl around to the front of the train, and fly along suspended a couple of feet ahead of it. That feels great and makes for a much more satisfying ride.

When I get off there’s a hugely fat theme park attendant checking people out of the rides. She is massively tall, towering over me, with vividly pink skin off-set by a hideous flower-patterned dress and big black boots. We get chatting and she tells me that there’s a Transformers connection with the ride. I explain that I couldn’t get inside, but then it is intended for children. Dad gives us all a yell and we leave.

~~~~~~~~~~

The minibus approaches the prison gates which open for us and we drive inside. A group of us are visiting the local prison, to learn about how it works and see if we’d like to work there. We all get out and go into the staff area. We’re asked to remove our shoes and place them in the lockers provided. The lockers are locked with key-shaped slices of red or yellow peppers. We’re also given socks made of peppers which just about fit into our prison shoes.

We get a tour of the prison. It all looks very clean and surprisingly genteel. There are convicts sitting in armchairs and playing cards in a very pleasant manner. We pass a man sitting at a table who stops me to ask that I place any waste in the receptacles provided, indicating a glass ashtray. I’m idly tearing strips off what seems to be a cardboard avocado so I drop some of the bits in the ashtray.

The prison is very large so the tour takes a while, we’re eventually led back to the staff quarters where we’re shown some of the paperwork that the prison warders. The staff are all bitching about the constant changes in procedures and we sympathise. There’s a vague discussion about how nice the prisoners seem to be. Apparently it’s generally very quiet so the staff are bored more than anything else. Behind the staff room there’s a huge window and in the dark you can see the multi-tiered showering facility with all the prisoners looking like a scene from ‘Chicago’ as they have their evening wash.

We’re allowed to leave and there’s some confusion about how to unlock the pepper lockers. Most of the others are complaining that it’s hard to fit their own shoes over the pepper socks. I point out that they could just change into their own socks. As we’re herded into the minibus it occurs to me that I wouldn’t like to work there, but my brother might be quite good at it.

~~~~~~~~~

I go back to the theme park late at night after it’s closed up. I want to go back on the train ride and find the Transformers things that the attendant was talking about. The train now resembles a miniature bullet train. As it starts up a big screen behind the train flashes up with information about the new Transformers movie. It’s also displayed within the train itself at the end of every compartment.

The door is only about two feet high, so it’s going to be a struggle to get inside. Nonetheless I squeeze in. It’s very claustrophobic and I have to wriggle to get down the train. There are tiny sleeping compartments all the way along and I get in the habit of peeking inside them as I go past. It’s extremely hard going and I have to suppress an urge to panic.

As I pass one carriage I see there’s a young boy asleep inside. He must have been left when the theme park closed earlier. I open the door and pat him on his head of blond hair to wake him up. He’s a bit worried, but I tell him not to worry. I wriggle past (I’m filling the entire corridor) as the train comes to a halt. Somehow the boy can stand easily and walk out of the same door I have to pull myself out of.

Ghostly Reading

Dreams 19-08-06

I'm sitting on a fence in the middle of a huge muddy field, reading a book on the history of the area. As I read, the events in the book come to life around me and I see the early settlers build the town. As I advance through the chapters the progress speeds up and people's whole lives flash past me and the town rising and falling. I watch the rodeos and training of horses. It's wonderful and beautiful and I just sit there as it all swirls past and is whatever I read. Then they all grow transparent and disappear and I close the book.

I'm very tired, so I climb down off the fence and trudge back through the deeply churned mud to the wooden house at the edge of the field. I take my boots off and leave them on the veranda before going inside. It’s decorated like an American ranch from a film. I go and make a cup of tea in the kitchen. As I walk past I notice that there's an impressive pile of post waiting for me. It's stacked up since I've been reading and experiencing the past. I just note who they're from, I don't open any of it yet, but most is from my sister in blue envelopes. There's a lacy packet which intrigues me so I take it back into the kitchen with me.

The front door opens and there's a "hello" from the lady who runs the house I'm staying in. I'm not sure whether she's a relative or not. She joins me in the kitchen and I give her a hug and tell her I've finished the book, so my holiday’s pretty much over. I open the parcel and it’s a wedding invitation made up as a gothic black and crimson t-shirt. I sigh. It’s going to be a real hassle returning to the real world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I go to see the rest of my family in Sweden. The rest of the family and Marilyn have been there for some time waiting for me. First up is a meal with the family out in the deeps of the forest near where the family’s cabin is.

The trees are tall and spindly and look they’ve been dead forever, no leaves
and leaning over the circle where the table has been set (should be really threatening but isn’t). Everything has a dark sepia tint to it. Big bowls of salad and other foodstuffs are laid out on the table and served with wooden tongs. I’m feeling very subdued and don’t really want to take part. Dad keeps asking me how often I’ve come home to do my laundry during the last term. I have to remind him that I haven’t worked at the school for a while now. He seems angry that I went to the ranch after work finished instead of coming here to meet the family.

I can’t drag myself out of the gloom, although everyone else is having a good time. Over the next couple of days I go on walks and talk to the others in the woods.

Near the family home is a cabin under construction and I hang around there playing with Spats (our cat). She worries me though, as the cabin is full of holes and surrounded by a deep chasm. Spats blithely leaps through the holes and plays in the cabin. This leaves me panicking until she returns. She jumps through solid walls, so I go in after her. The cabin is dark inside and only has half of its floors and walls.

Marilyn comes in to find me but she doesn’t notice Spats, even when she jumps into my lap and I scoop her up. It’s only when I go to jump over the gap that separates the floor from the door that I begin to suspect that Spats and I are just ghosts, tolerated and welcomed by the family.

Eating Out and Sorting Bones

Dreams 18-08-06

I'm at the office I work in (in the dream); it's a long room with a table running the length of it. My colleagues and I are equally spaced along both sides. There's a cabinet instead of one staff member, hiding another person behind it, who seems to have been ostracised from the team. Gill and Sue are commenting that the girl who's joined us recently is very nice but seems a bit thick.

Everyone at work is due to attend a big public meal where there will be many other figures of local importance. We all roll up in taxis (some in limos) and people are being announced as they enter the hotel-restaurant with the white columns and glass doors at the entrance. I get a bit confused and nervous about going inside and so they miss my name out, which upsets me a little and I sort of sneak in unnoticed. There are long rows of tables with every kind of person sitting, drinking and talking animatedly. I find a seat at the end of a table near some people I vaguely recognise.

Many of the attendees seem to be disfigured in some way, missing limbs, or having unusually deformed features. There are a lot of dwarfs and foreshortened limbs. A tiny man in a suit with a beard comes up to me and says "I've been looking forward to seeing you perform, show us your stuff," I don't really know what he means, so I just talk to the guy. He finds this "hilarious; I'm a dentist by the way". Then two much larger folk come along, male and female and say, "I bet you though he was our child," pointing to the dentist chap, "but he's our Dad!" I thought nothing of the sort, but laugh along with them anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm moving house and our business premises with Samson (from 'Carnivale'). We have an especially grisly trade in assassination and dismemberment of corpses, so a lot of the stuff we're carrying is either weaponry or body parts. We're just sorting out the kitchen as our final task of moving in. Samson is washing up at the sink, standing on a four-legged stool, elbow deep in bubbles.

I'm unloading the last few things from a box in a cupboard. We're bickering about my not having unpacked that box sooner and everything's now defrosted and getting messy. The box is full of bags of meat, twist-tied at the top. They're all soggy and dripping blood all over the cupboard. I carry a load around to the freezer and stack them inside.

I come across one bag which is going off and start to empty it into the bin. I separate bits of bone and gristle from tiny weapons which are mixed into it. I lay the weapons to one side - tiny spears and axes (they're all from some toys I had as a kid, sort of bionic beasts with elemental affiliations and heat-sensitive stickers on their chests), which I lick clean of blood.

I'm deeply engaged in my task and so don't notice what is happening to Samson ('I' have third person vision as well as being myself so 'I' can see around the corner even while my attention is on the weapons). As he washes the dishes, a doppelganger made of blood, gore and the ground-up bits of bodies rises up out of the plughole like a djinn. Samson doesn't seem to notice until the thing's hands close around his throat and start to choke him. It's the remnants of all the people we've killed come back in revenge.

I hear Samson choking and come around the corner to the terrifying vision; I pick up a sharp carving knife and come up behind Samson, and slap him with it to get his attention. He takes the knife off me and plunges it into the doppelganger's face. It explodes in a shower of blood and guts all over the room. Samson turns to me, "time to move again."

Lost My Dog

Dream 17-08-06

I cycle into the underground car park of a gigantic building, accompanied by a friend on foot. We're going up to the film set on the top floor. Even the elevator is massive and dwarfs us as we step inside. The lift goes up forever, there are thousands of floors.

I don’t remember whether we get there or not, but I find myself waiting at the lift doors at the base of the building again, this time I have a dog with me. He's a lively little chap and I let him off the leash while I wait for one of the lifts to come down. There are a number of other people dressed in suits and jeans waiting for the lift as well. One of the doors further down the row opens and my dog dashes off, straight inside. The doors close and lift goes up. I stab the lift call button, but with no effect. I dive into the next lift to open and wait impatiently for it to rise.

I have no idea where the dog will have gotten off, so I get out a random floor and start looking for him. The first corridor I go down leads me into a law library. I'm running past cubicles full of earnest-looking people, none of whom have seen a dog anywhere.

I exit into a row of Victorian houses, the ceiling here is so high I can't even see it. I peek into a few gardens but there's no sign of the dog anywhere. I go down an alley and am in a tiny kitchen. Since I'm there I decide to have a quick cup of tea, but then the door opens and there's a young Chinese girl screaming at me. She's soon joined by two other girls wearing toe-socks who add to the noise. They calm down when I make them a cuppa too. I've made my way into a university halls of residence, and there are definitely no dogs here.

I leave them after the tea and am on a different floor again. This one's full of greenery, parks and what looks like a farm several miles away. There's a dog playing in a small copse, so I run towards it whistling, but it's just a spaniel, not the dog I'm looking for.

Fragments and Seeking an ATM

Louis and I are walking down the Birmingham canal path on the way to Jonothan’s birthday meal out with his parents. It’s nice and quiet and there’s no traffic on the canal. It becomes the Nottingham canal as we approach the Lock & Keys pub after crossing the weir which pours down into the Leen.

We arrive at the fancy hotel-restaurant in town. We’re regarded rather suspiciously by the maitre d’ but allowed to enter. Perhaps it was because of our bare feet and trousers rolled up to our knees.

The birthday meal seems to go well and we’re about to leave when I get distracted by the décor of the place. There are shallow pools of water (small upside down arches) spaced evenly around the edge of the room. I can’t resist the temptation and have to have a dip. The pools are tiled, so it’s possible to stand on the edge and just slide all the way through to the other side. Louis and I do all the pools in the room.

By the time we’re done the meal has ended and we’re all on the way out. The staff are looking at us with disgust as inevitably our trousers were not rolled up high enough and we’re dripping on the carpet. As a parting gift, Jonothan’s Dad gives Louis a fiver and I get a gift voucher.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m left to wait outside while Marilyn and some others go into a building. I seem to be waiting in a cemetery adjacent to a road that ends in the Balti Towers Indian restaurant (in Burton on Trent), but I don’t think they’ve gone to church. There’s a large cat perched on the pedestal for a statue on the end of a wall, so I go to say hello and give it a stroke. He’s very friendly and we stand there together until the others turn up and we leave.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Marilyn and I are in our kitchen (it feels like a cross between our actual kitchen and the one that my Nanna had on Lawn Avenue in Allestree). Our beloved cat, Spats, has died recently and we’re both grieving for her while trying to get on with ordinary things like cooking and paying bills. We’re about to pop out, but I just peek out of the window that overlooks a small concrete yard with a garden beyond and I see Spats.

She’s now a large, fluffy black and white cat with black rings around her eyes and a wide white stripe around her belly. I let her in through the back door. She’s the reincarnation of our cat, and when the door opens, another cat who is also Spats comes in. This one is mainly black, but equally fluffy. We realise that she’s been reincarnated as this pair of cats, who have tags that say 102 and 103 respectively. “Of course – just like in Lemony Snicket, they’re twins” I say. Somehow they are naturally following some pattern in those books.

~~~~~~~~~~~

We’re running for a train that we have to catch (out of London?). The entrance is a stone archway leading into a dark, claustrophobic tunnel. About a hundred yards in is a table with a dour-looking female attendant in a dark red and cream uniform. We tell her we need to get tickets home and she points at the large ticket machine next to her.

She indicates that we should feed it coins and paper money. Marilyn’s goes in fine and it spits out a ticket. I can’t get the £10 note oriented properly; the sign shows the Queen’s head in a different way from on the note and I have to try it all four ways round before it’s accepted. The attendant shrugs sympathetically. Even though I put in the same sum, I don’t have enough money for the ticket home. I ask if I can make up the difference with Switch, but she says they can’t use it at this station: I’ll have to go and get some more money.

The station manager comes over and says the next train is due in twenty minutes so I should have time as there are lots of cash points nearby. He asks the attendant to wait for me to return as she's about to go off shift. We say that’s really kind of them and I run out of the station.

Outside it’s dark, late evening and there’s lots of noise and nightlife. The road is narrow and I can’t see what’s on the other side. There’s more activity on my left, so I go that way. I pass several bars and clubs, but no cash points. I go into an off-licence thinking they might have an ATM, but the place is full of people browsing the shelves. It has a weird neon glow and feels very seedy. I consider going to buy something and getting cash-back, but there’s a massive queue at the counter so I head out again.

Further up the road I come to a hotel, which looks more promising. I’m very conscious that I’m running out of time. Once inside the hotel I find myself having to push through veils of billowing silk like being trapped in a beautiful and aromatic laundry. Between the veils and partly obscured by them are dozens of beautiful, almost idealised women, some fully dressed, others in lingerie. They are trying to seduce me, although I never hear them speak. They often seem soft around the edges and some appear to be computer generated. I try to ignore them and stay focussed on finding a cash dispenser; I’m struggling to remember that I don’t just need change – I have no notes to break.

Eventually I get out of the corridor full of women and find myself outside the hotel. It’s daytime and guests and staff are lounging around in chairs and fenced-in patios. The staff look exhausted and the guests are ugly and pasty, some dancing naked. I hurry past them, suddenly panicking that I’ve already missed the train – it’s 10.22.

I try to call Marilyn but just receive a series of nonsensical text messages from unknown numbers. I start to run down the hill back to the main street and recall that I set off later than planned, so I must have more time. Then I remember that I have another £10 note in my wallet, so everything should be fine.

Dreams Past: Going into Space & Flying to LA

These are dreams I recorded in my writing book on 8th April 2006

My brother Tim and I are at least two of the astronauts selected for the first mission outside the solar system, to seek life and habitable planets. There are two ships going up (we’re on different ones).

The space port has models of the different vessels in its vast park-like grounds. There’s also a large sculpture of metal, stone and plastic illustrating the logical processes of investigating other planets. The ships are designed to select and approach likely planets and then either go in and investigate further or determine them as unsuitable and go to the next planet; the ships must be partly automatic. The decision-making is represented by these plastic lines embedded in the stone which arch over the heads of people in the park, twisting and splitting endlessly and wrapping around the sculpture.

On the morning of the launch I’m picked up by two friends in their black car. We have to fetch Tim next. We screech through the early morning streets, find Tim and we all drink quite a lot of beer.

I realise I’ve forgotten some things I need for the journey, so we go back to my house. I race into the house, across the white-painted veranda and rush upstairs. I grab another book from my shelf (I already have a huge stack of books in the car), my writing book, a space biro and my Little Bagpuss cuddly toy. I pop into my Dad’s room and give him a kiss on the cheek, telling him I’ll send him a message later. I leave the kitchen table in complete disarray.

We get to the launch okay. Everyone is fairly seriously inebriated so they’ll be able to cope with the initial launch phase (something to do with needing to be relaxed).

Once in space the two ships can communicate freely. I chat with Tim and hope that the next launch phase will be easier as there’s no requirement to drink before it happens.

The ships have vast hydroponic sections with cabins and consoles for about twenty-thirty staff each. They are built around a tall atrium, with greenhouses at the top and several corridors going off in opposite directions underneath them. Ladders lead down to the ground of the atrium where all the consoles and workspaces are. There are also corridors with hefty bulkhead doors fanning out from the working area.

We potter about for a few days on board as the ship identifies prospective planets, then finds they are unsuitable and the ship veers off on new trajectories seeking further options.

I wake in my sleep and wander down the corridor outside my cabin to find a friend who’s on shift (he’s an engineer) for a bit of a chat. I find him slumped next to his console, stabbed in the neck. I run to the bridge (down one of the corridors off the work station) and discover a mutiny underway. A woman and several male crewmembers are taking over the ship and killing the rest of the crew. I manage to slip away before I am noticed and transmit a message to my brother on the other ship.

I am captured by the mutineers and talk to them. They refuse to discuss their motives – I suspect them of being either government agents or religious fanatics who want us to avoid meeting any alien life forms. But as a race we desperately need more space. Perhaps aliens have already found us and this is a cover-up from their side? Just before they kill me the whole ship shudders as a vast spacecraft appears from nowhere beside us. It’s obviously an alien ship in design – the mutineers are hiding the existence of aliens!

~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m on a cruise with my fiancée and her family, but I don’t feel that I really deserve her. Her father suggests that I fly her to Los Angeles to meet my family, have a nice meal and enjoy ourselves. I point out that I only have a small aeroplane licence. He pooh-poohs this and we decide to just go for it anyway.

There’s a tiny runway at the front of the cruise ship (perhaps twenty feet long!), so we use it. The take-off is smooth and we rise up into the air. The horizon ends abruptly and ‘above’ (or rather beyond) it is the land laid out like a map with roads marked with their road map-colours and names written on them. We fly off the sea and onto the map. It’s a bit scary as I’m not much of a pilot (this is a larger plane than I’m used to), so we flip upside down a few times and do loop-the-loops accidentally.

When we reach LA I can’t keep the plane in the air anymore so we have to land on the map-land below us. I can see the red road coming up towards us, its name stretched along its whole length; as we get closer the buildings start to become three-dimensional which increases as we drop below the tops of the houses and drive along the road. Although the plane is far wider than the road we don’t touch the buildings on either side. We cruise along the motorway and then into LA itself. It doesn’t look like LA, it’s an odd mix of dry-stone walled country roads and the B-road network around Burton-on-Trent, Derby and Swadlincote.

Pictures in the Park

I’m in London (although there’s nothing I recognise), walking through a park made up of large squares of grass separated by cobbled paths and bound on at least two sides by some huge old stone buildings. The path is marked with mould in green, white and yellow, like ancient gravestones. The park goes on for as far as I can see behind and in front of me, so I just keep walking. I’m a photographer and occasionally stop to take identical pictures of the park.

Ahead of me is a young black kid standing on his own in the middle of one of the grassy areas. He seems like a good subject so I ask him to wear a hideous brown and orange jumper and put on a brown hat with tassels dangling from it. He seems much closer to the walls around that side of the park, and they are huge and feel like cathedrals.

After a couple of shots we continue to walk through the park, across the grass squares. We reach a crowd of young teenage lads circling another boy who is doing remarkable trick with a football. I get in close and start taking dozens of photos. He’s doing jumps and impossible horizontal spins in the air. Not all of the pictures are perfect, but I must have taken hundreds before I realise the crowd has dissipated and I’m just left with the first kid I met.

We walk off towards the road (we’ve finally crossed the park). It’s very murky, everything seems brown and badly-lit. There are odd shops and closed petrol stations lining the street. We’re never passed by another person or car. The pavement is cobbled and very steep but it takes no effort to walk up it.

I explain that if I manage to sell any of the photos then I’ll obviously need to pay a percentage to the subjects, so I’ll need both of their contact details. The kid (he looks about 9) says he doesn’t know the football trickster; I’d assumed they were friends. I tell him that they’ll be on flickr.com as well if he wants to see them. We talk about what we do and I find out he’s actually 17 and is just finishing his A-Levels.

I’m heading for the railway station so that I can get home. When I reach it, after climbing up a cobbled wall on the corner of the street the young lad is gone and I’m in the car park. Louis and Carla are waiting for me there so we can all catch a train together. We recognise the two yellow cars nearest to me – they’re both Pete’s (a friend I work with) and we approach them. They’re both one-seater cars, pressed close together. One is quite sporty, the other looks like a futuristic Plastic Pig (three-wheeler). For some reason this is ‘typical’, so that Pete and his other half can be near each other even when parked.

Before I can stop them Louis and Carla have climbed into the cars and are rocking them from side to side, battering them against each other. I yell at them to get out of the cars for a while, take a photo and go off to catch the train; they follow after a few more shakes of the cars.

Improv in Asda

I’m hanging around in my room which is on the top floor of the hotel complex owned by my father. It’s a fashionable place, very dark but sleek interiors, hints of blue around the hidden lighting in the ceilings – more like some futuristic space-ship than a hotel, except for the blue carpet. I’m packing a rucksack on my bed. There’s loud music coming through the floor from the club/bar below.

Two girls are walking down the corridor before me dressed for clubbing. They walk straight past the ‘Private’ sign on my open glass door before realising they’re in the wrong place. They apologise and go out again, turn left and go down the stairs.

There’s a boxing match in the bar this evening which I intend to avoid – I’m planning to go out instead. I hear gunshots being fired, three or four, which must be in the bar. I go down the backstairs (rucksack over my shoulder). Through the circular safety-glass window I can see the shooter, so I open the door and shoot him twice, in the head and chest. Then I leave.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m cruising around Burton with Louis at the wheel. We end up in the Asda car park, just listening to some tunes. Then one of the Chinese gangs turns up in their flashy and noisy cars, so we decide to leave, quickly. We go to Mr Chang’s – the manager of Asda, who lives pretty much on site in a nice semi-detached house, attached to the supermarket itself, although it looks like it’s just on a nice suburban street with a lawn and its own tiny road.

Mr Chang and his wife are delighted to see us, and we’re welcomed with open arms. We’re soon sitting in the hall drinking Tsing-Tao beer and fiddling with our cool mini-computers (like PSPs crossed with Star Trek datapads).

Our peace is disturbed by the sound of the noisy cars outside again, and Mr Chang turns pale. He says he has to face them. He tells us there’s going to be a challenge or a contest, and asks us if we’d like to take part. I ask what kind of contest, Mr Chang says it’s an improvisation competition; you have to keep talking no matter what. I lose interest; too easy!

He goes outside to join the ring of people standing in the Asda car park. They’re all members of rival improv groups; I recognise a couple of them and shrink further into the house. I can still see them through the open door as they begin the game, some talking, others chanting rhymes like:

“Look at Tommy Tucker, the tubby little fucker,
You grab his ear and I’ll take the other,
If we pull hard enough he’ll split down the middle,
And splash all his guts into a great big puddle. “

(It’s the only one I remember and in the dream the meter somehow worked)

This goes on for ages and I doze off. I wake up in the guest bedroom in a sleeping bag, Louis is just waking up as well. I realise I’ve left my computer on all night and am panicking about it for some reason. Louis laughs that it’ll cost me a fortune, but I try (unsuccessfully) to explain that I’m not on pay-as-you-go access. I’m trying to get to a particular site but the keys are mixed up or cross-wired because I just can’t type properly. After much frustration we just chuck everything in the bags and load up the car.