simplism
Lurker

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID
I wake in the night and hear the mice squeaking. I make a hissing sound and see two of them escape under the bedroom door. In the dark I see a small figure huddled beside some wooden children’s blocks. It isn’t scared of me when I make more hissing sounds at it - staring at me, his body tensed up and low to the ground like a playful dog – and when I get out of bed and stamp on the floor, it runs closer to me and stops. It finally runs under the door after I push it back with the side of my foot, making sure not to hurt him, but I see more tiny little faces waiting for their chance to run back inside.
I pick up books, one by one, from the pile next to my bed and start blocking the space under the door. At the same time, however, the mice are undoing my work, pushing the books askew when I'm not looking after I’ve moved further along, continually returning to find gaps in my makeshift wall. One of the mice even drags away one of my favourite books, because I remember saying, “Nooo, not my Borges” and watch it take it down the stairs.

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID-DREAM
I’m walking with the family in Californication, up a ramp from an underground carpark that resembles the one at the local Medical Centre, leading up to the ground floor. Hank Moody isn’t very talkative, tired and disillusioned, as if he’s just gotten out of prison, his estranged wife and daughter talking to him cheerfully, exchanging details of stories about things they’ve done recently or about friends of his and little ideas for things to look forward to, looking back at him constantly as they walk with him, slow and pensive.

We come out by the road at the top of a hill overlooking a city, dark with a brilliant violet sunset far away, hanging large over the horizon, speckled with fluro orange like a beautifully exotic iris. Suddenly, a row of lights from what seems like a small, synchronised group of fighter jets passes silently overhead from behind. I say to Ken, wouldn’t it be cool if the planes bomb the city and the show (Californication) turns into a story of them surviving in post-apocalyptic world.

Soon I realise that what we’re looking at is a large space shuttle doing the kinds of aerial acrobatics you might see a jet-fighter perform at an air show for an extended amount of time. Finally it slows and lands gracefully, more like a helicopter, on the road next to us. A woman, the pilot, steps out, as if from a semi-trailer cabin, and Hank’s estranged wife walks up to great her half-way. Apparently, she has organised this for Hank, and says to him and the children (there’s a teenaged son in addition to the daughter from the show), as they make their way in the opposite direction, down a gentle grassy slope towards a park, "have fun and not to forget to bring it back by 3". This is when I notice another woman reluctantly but graciously decide not to follow them, looking towards the wife knowingly and putting her coat down on the grass to sit on.

NON-DREAM DREAM

The hall way resembles an indoor skate half-pipe (perhaps influenced by Lucy Hall telling me a few weeks back about the photographer’s collection of bedroom half-pipes in Japan), and I seem to be running, while walking heavily down the steep corridor, a couple below me who are friends, I intentionally scare him by pretending to land on his shoulders from behind, as the hallway levels out quickly.


I then remembering lying on my back with a skateboard under my feet, feeling self-conscious that I need to prove myself, like my reputation amongst the other skaters who might be pass by and spot me momentarily, trying to pop an olley solely by force of my ankles and knees, which I do finally without too much practice.


Then I seem to be standing over a large black and white photo of a famous internationally-renowned skater from yesteryear lying in a stretcher covered in bandages looking at the camera expressionlessly. It manifests as the beginning of a video documentary on a horrific accident he had which ended his career, a view of cascading balconies of a resort hotel leading down to the blue-green waters of a lake, a helicopter hovering over the water, shadowed by a large stain of bright red blood, when the protagonist comes over, parachuting in like a bright orange hang-glider, from behind me, the commentator responding with genuine horror, anticipating that the man is flying too low, before he impacts with one of the balcony railings below, the commentator making references to his career during the excitement, painting the man as an expert, having won every type of major award, interrupted by another accident, the man apparently falling again horrifically, describing with panic how the man is next dragged by his parachute through the rotor blades of the helicopter, then across the blades of a second helicopter hovering nearby, just outside of the original field of vision. Finally the man lands and appears to stand motionlessly, covered in the deflated parachute, standing in the shallow water near the edge of a beachless cove, although no blood or shredded material is visible, suddenly begins shrieking, growing in intensity with each new breath. I wake up to the sound of the Cockatoos shrieking in the tree outside my window.

NON-DREAM DREAM
We walk towards the door, which appears level with the path I slow down mid-sentence when I notice that the front door is ajar. A sense of dread. (perhaps linked to the story I was telling Frida last Saturday morning 26/2 about experiences of my childhood house being robbed consecutively and how I used to have recurring dreams about coming home to an empty house)


Perhaps we approach the door quietly, listening if anyone is still inside, and we hear men’s voices speaking in Russian deep inside, because I panic and run as fast as I can, to the other side of the street, before we are noticed and devoured by danger. I run straight to the Coates’ house, knocking on the clear glass door, the mother approaches with a drink in her hand, smirking with her mouth full as if she’s having a party in the next room and they’re telling dark jokes. She answers the door mischievously at arm’s length. I smile and ask her if I can use her phone quickly. I call the real estate agent, and anxiety builds, anticipating (like when I called Stuart on Saturday night with only 88cents of credit) the credit running out, listening to repetitive automated messages, before finally I get an answer.


I report to him urgently that someone has broken into our house and that they are violent (dangerous) and need to be removed. The man on the other end says that they will be prepared to proceed with the matter once I supply them with the arrest report and that he can’t do anything now, that I should’ve called the police first, and as I realise the mistake I’ve made, the stress returns, he questions why I was never taught that I had to do that.


There are few scenes of us standing across the road from the house, indecisive on the Ash’s council strip watching for any movement.


While I sit outside the Coates’ house, I see Mum come home, pulling up in the station wagon. She gets out, with Margaret, walking towards the house. I call out to her but she doesn’t hear me. I shout out in a hushed tone, so not to raise the alarm of the men inside, but she’s getting closer to the house still. In desperation I begin shouting for her to get away from the house, but only Margaret hears me, stopping on the lawn, shocked by the intensity of my voice, but my Mum has already entered the house stupidly, and I have to grab her by the arm and march her out, insulting her for not hearing my warning and ignorantly putting herself in extreme danger, and she apologises a little embarrassedly, thanking me cheerfully, still not realising the seriousness of the situation.


There is another memory of sitting on the grass in the backyard of the Coates’ house, where I find 3 identical kitten, white with dark spots, and my friend tells me that they are dangerous. I ignore him, talking to them, so as not to frighten them, staring at me and shifting their formation slowly. I pick one up and it starts thrashing about, clawing at my wrist, trying to get free and lunge at my head, as I lean back and to the side defensively, as the others gang up on me at the same time.


At one stage, sitting on the concrete, like a loading bay combined with an outdoor cafe seating area, next to the convenience store, there are two young men standing above us, arms crossed and necks crooked towards each other, talking in German, and I point over to my Mum, who is mid-sentence with Margaret, pursing my eyebrows to indicate the two men, and without further explanation she quietly translates their conversation in real-time, which is about us, judging us contemptuously.


Sitting out the front of the Coates’ house, night-time, which is now a brightly-lit convenience store, and I go inside, filled with young people dressed up like a Friday night on King Street, perhaps because I spot Laura (who I saw at the Friki Tiki on Saturday night before the film screening) because I approach her specifically so I can borrow her phone to call the police. She doesn’t want to lend it to me, and not because she is broke, making up an excuse, awkwardly, saying thanks instead of sorry.


I then ask Cordy in the other aisle to use his phone quickly, which he hands me without hesitation, but I realise that the criminals have sabotaged the emergency line, a strange mix of different voices digitally contorted, which I interpret as muffled laughter.


I thank him and tell him that it was no use because “they’ve fucked with the [police] line”, at which point he suggests casually that I go up to the police station. I say it’s a good idea but I don’t know where the nearest one is, and he says that it’s just up the street.


Enthusiastically with pace, I walk up Peacock Parade which is a dark, semi-industrial area, with lots of old brick warehouse fronts, and junk out the front on the sidewalk, broken wooden crates piled up against a telegraph pole, obscuring my field of vision, an illuminated sign on the other side, but standing discarded against the wall, when I hear one of the criminals screaming indignantly, running at full speed from the house, passed the bend in the road where I started at the convenience store, and I start running as fast as I can.


The short guy catches up to me, around my age, and he runs straight to the bottle shop, open like a fruit market, and picks up a bottle of red wine from the rack, and threatens me, saying that he’ll bend my arm back the wrong way with the bottle against a chopping board, or something, a hard surface but unfixed.


The police station is right next door and I suddenly make a bolt for the open doorway before he has a chance to block me off, and beat him to it, feeling invincible by passing the threshold, slowing down like a sprinter, down a narrow hall towards the shoulder-high wooden bench with a large authoritarian insignia printed on the front of it, even though there is no one manning it at that moment.

NON DREAM DREAM LUCID DREAM
I am walking up the stairs, trying not to make too much sound, my shoes hard against the hard wooden floor, as if they might fear that I’m a prowler. It’s the house of my auntie, Chris (perhaps triggered by the lengthy conversation with my mum last night about Chris and Oma and Luke) – the original house from childhood visits - and I’ve just arrived in Holland. Coming up the stairs onto the first floor, the door is open, so I’m planning on going into the first room opposite the stairs without stirring anyone, but when the bed comes into view, there is a soft pre-dawn light filtering through transparent curtains, and my cousin Luke is going down on his girlfriend, she wearing nothing but a green t-shirt (perhaps a reference to my favourite colour at Induction Day at Amnesty yesterday)... They see me almost immediately, reacting surprised, the girl gesturing with some embarrassment that my room is upstairs, as I also try and save the situation, like I don’t want to interrupt I only need to know where I’m sleeping and I’ll be as quick as gone. In the next room, where I expect to find Chris, there is again movement under the blanket, and multiple heads stick out surprised, with at least three couples all surprised to see me.

Upstairs in the dark, spacious attic like a small community hall with hard wooden floor, there are lots of people who are familiar to me as the friends me and Luke used to hang with when we were all younger, and starting with Luke, I give them all big powerful hugs, crushing them close for a brief passionate hug in the excitement, although physically they all resemble closer the dark long-haired, Latino faces of More’s friends we used to hang with in Cusco, or in Plaza Dorego in Buenos Aires, and I suppose thusly, a gringo, a friend of a friend, I’m more excited to see them again as they are of me. They’re all coming to visit at the same time, and next I remember that a band, modelled physically on the consummate rock star faces of The Church (in mid-December 2010 they played at my last shift working at Notes), singing 90's grunge music, the singer almost resembling a thinner version of old Peter Fonda (from the Californication episode a few days back on late Sunday night), playing a low-strapped electric Stratocaster, in the middle of the room without needing to set up.

At the drinks table, a guy who is in his late 30’s, a musician type, recognises me as the guest of honour, asks me to crack his back, and I don’t need too much instruction before I hold him firmly with my left hand on his shoulder and with my other hand cupped inside his left shoulder blade push it forward with a sinewy pop that seems to relieve him. He then tests out how much looser his shoulder feels, softly but still quite rigidly assuming a drummer’s stance and playing a simple beat on the air. There’s another veteran of the rock scene, tall and strong and a bald head, dressed sharp and all black, and, in the obliged manner as if the gig and their being present were contractual, he pours me a drink as if for a competition winner. He and the drummer talk about how tough musicians have it, continuing without irony even as I tell them that they’re lucky, they get to make a living out of playing music.

*

In another scene, I am downstairs, outside in a small narrow courtyard on the side of the house, and one of the girls across from me talks about how they have this thing they do, and I realise that there’s a guy that has already scaled the two tiers of sloping tiled rooves.

He is standing on the edge of the roof, if only for the rush of adrenaline, when he suddenly snaps backward violently as if slipping, and very quickly slides on his back down the first tier of slick, concave terracotta tiles, bouncing down onto the second shorter tier, when we all stand, reacting to break his mortal fall, but without significant resistance caused by any one of us, he somehow slows, turning on the lip of the roof and, cart wheeling smoothly in the air, lands gracefully on his feet.


In a subsequent scene, I move naturally through the liquid surface of a horizontal, rectangular mirror set at eye-level on the wall, coming out again in the darkened back of what resembles a garage and move to the front, with the big barn-like door open and strong sunlight coming in through the gaps in the roof as if it were made up of long sticks bound together, or lots of big holes in the jungle leaf roofing.

I notice a strange looking child next to my leg, who seems to be alone (perhaps like the toddler in the stroller alone outside the general store along Glebe Point Road yesterday, staring expressionlessly down the street) and I stoop to it, perhaps to ask where her mother is. The ugly, fat baby, standing up wobbling with arms outstretched, not physically older than 2 years old, talks to me, although in a squeaky voice, perfectly, like talking to a much older kid. Loose, pock-marked skin, becomes mice ears the next time I look (like my pet rat when I was in my teens who developed a tumour and lost all of its hair)...

Holding it in my hands, I put it down to let it free as an over-grown bald and wrinkly mouse, that resembles the skin and deformation of a person with an ageing disorder. I think about it again (perhaps based on my background thinking lately to more regularly question to the logic of what I’m experiencing, and exercise my memory like whether I can remember the steps that lead me to my present location) and suddenly realise that I must be in a dream, immediately holding my nose and when I feel the contradictory wind through my nostrils, I say out loud that I’m dreaming to Simon Patterson who has been with me for sometime now, who I know will be interested in this realisation and follow me in exploring its implications.


Lucid dreaming, I suppress the thought that I might wake up if I get too excited, as well as the thought to write down this breakthrough and document what is happening subsequently (as if learning from the previous attempt – with the differently coloured humus – where I immediately began writing in the excitement, a reaction that I explained to Symo and Ken on last Friday night as being stupid, saying that ‘I totally missed the point’), and have no trouble focusing on trying to change the scene with my mind, focusing specifically on the mirror which we have been passing through. I see the people in the courtyard on the other side, but now the conceit doesn’t function, and the mirror changes from a realistic inanimate object into never existing in the first place, an empty black frame built into the wall. I had assumed that my sub-conscious was still active, and it seems from this evidence that my awakening of conscious awareness in the dream has limited the fanciful potential of my imagination.