[Miscellany]

It was one of those nights where I couldn't seem to get my slumber act together. I fell asleep quickly but kept waking with every noise. I woke with the rain and willed the constant drumming of the raindrops to send me to sleep, but not even that would work. Finally I gave up and had my breakfast at 5.30am, and promptly fell asleep again soon after. When in doubt - try a hot cross bun.

I dream:

I am on a cliff in California looking over the edge at the sea beneath. It is a gentle sort of deep blue, not angry or grey and smashing against the rocks, but calm and magnificent in its quietness. I want to go swimming and contemplate diving straight over the edge when I see a small pathway leading down, down, down to the bottom. Then someone, or something pushes me over the edge anyway and I hang dangerously upsidedown, my shoelace caught on a rock - screaming. Somehow, and without much effort, as I recall, I make my way back to the top of the cliff and then down the safe way. My brother now joins me at my side, making funny observations as we travel - as he tends to do.

We only walk a few short minutes before we reach the bottom of the path. The sea is clear and inviting. There are no waves and that somehow unsettles me. Still water has no life, I think. I go in and splash around a bit before coming out again. Bro is waiting patiently. We talk a bit before discovering a small cave near the edge. Walking inside we discover it is a huge hollow affair. It's walls are smooth and grey and it goes steadily downwards like a huge grey waterslide, curling around the corner at the bottom and going on furtherdown. We have no idea how far it will go down but it seems safe enough. Even inside, the sea water laps at our feet and somehow we know that the further along we walk the deeper it will get.

I take off my shoes, roll up my pants and hoist the giant book I now have (it is filled with strange squiggles and pictures) up in my arms. I carry it all with me. Bro throws his unecessary shoes etc at the mouth of the cave knowing we'll come back through this way to get out.

We walk.

It is mostly dark and grey and there are small children splashing in the water. Somehow at every beachtown we pass (there are signs) there is a small opening in the wall of the cave and we have the option of walking out into the sun. This is at odds with the construction of this space, how can we be at ground level when we keep going down? We choose to walk on.

Soon the atmosphere changes. The frolicking children dissapear and we are greeted with a seedier more dangerous subculture of people. Greying women huddled over bonfires lit in small hollows off to the side of the main dark strip and tiny gypsy children with vacant expressions on their faces purposefully bumping into us. The water is up to our knees now and the windows dissapear, like final chances missed and taken away. We continue walking. My fear builds while bro nonchalantly tosses a ball in the air. Somehow I make the decision to hold his fear as well as my own within me so that he can keep playing happily. I, however feel dread.

Every now and again we come across others like ourselves who have chosen to take this journey and we stop and sit in one of the bonfire lit hollows and discuss the space. The stone tables have markings on them like the ones in my book and I soon piece together the messages. They are some weird and occult and hold some sort of secret about life in general. Real life, that is, when you strip away elements like buildings, bodies and culture. It isn't pleasant. I discover something, I can't for the life of me remember now but it terrified me then. I push Bro out of the hollow and we make our way back through the hordes of people and out of the first window we see. Everything is bright, sunny and warm and the cave seems like a cold dark dream. I sit on the hood of a rusting car and eat an ice-cream when a man sits next to me and engages me in conversation. I don't look at him, but when I do I realise his flesh is rotting off his bones: his grin half skeleton. I make my excuses to leave, not wanting to entice anger and get up and look around helplessly for Bro so we can get going. We need to make our way back to the start of this strange cave formation.

We step back into the greying hall of the cave, fleshy guy at our heels and somehow I know we won't make it back.

I wake up.

What.
the.
fuck?

posted by M at 12:50 pm 7 comments