held from behind & makeup

A and I were walking down a grassy hill, back to our van, in the early evening. As we opened the door, a man walked alongside us and then grabbed me from behind. I threw my mobile phone to A and closed the car door so that she would be able to call the police. The man didn’t really do anything except hold me against the side of the van, whilst I repeatedly told him to let me go, speaking as calmly as possible. Suddenly there were several other cars around us and the man left. I hopped into the car and realised that no one had understood that I was in trouble as I had appeared to be calm.

Next, I was walking through David Jones in the women’s clothing department. I came across an exclusive boutique situated in the middle of the floor. It was run by two very interesting looking women in their forties or fifties—there was a photograph of them on the wall: a woman with dark hair and the other with fire red. Glamorous women were trying on the clothes. I recognised one of the women as R, a tall slender woman that I haven’t seen for twenty years. She looked almost the same as when I last saw her and she was as striking as always. I walked over to the Clarins counter to apply some lipstick before she recognised me; I asked the assistant if I could borrow her mirror. As I was putting the lid back on my lipstick, it broke. The assistant offered to do my makeup and I agreed. When she had finished, I looked in the mirror again and, though she had done a lovely job, I felt too made up. Instead of washing the makeup off, I simply removed it like a mask and gave it back to the lady. Another woman came over and held me from behind and I felt safe. I then helped the store assistants man their counter while they took a break.

horse and death cloud

I could see a beautiful grey and sand horse. I called to the horse and it came to me though it was wild. There were barbed wire fences either side of where we were and the horse’s coat kept being caught in the wire. I untangled the soft hair as the tangles occurred. As I was stroking the horse, I also noticed that there was bright blue bubblegum stuck in its tail. I attempted to remove the gum without hurting the horse or without being kicked. We heard a sound and turned to see a mass of people, hundreds of dead people, their energies merged somehow so that although we could see individuals, they were simultaneously one. Their combined energy emitted a droning sound, a reverberation, which was frightening. They floated down the hill toward us and the horse and I shielded ourselves from the moving grey cloud by turning toward one another and lowering our heads, leaning against each other. The huge entity passed straight through us like a forceful wind.

Next, I was standing on a playing field with a number of other people. We heard a similar eerie humming sound and looked up to see another swarm of dead people whose energies had merged. We could see their skeletal faces and bones, grey and green. They watched us for a moment before rushing down the hill—a storm of death passing through us as we braced ourselves against the onslaught.

festival & bad products

I was at a festival very early in the morning, walking the grounds as tents were being erected, food stalls were being set up, and before the crowds had arrived. I was walking along the edge of a short cliff, watching as people worked, contributing here and there. Someone was cooking food and I noticed that the flames had crept out of the fire pit and licked the nearby foliage. No one was concerned even as I drew their attention to it. Soon the flames had engulfed surrounding trees in a long line; a fire trail framed the edge of the cliff. Still, nobody was worried. I walked down the hill and across a vast field where later there would be entertainment. I sat down against a wall close to the entrance of the entire area, waiting for my brother who soon arrived with a couple of others. They were hungry so I pointed out the food stalls back up on the cliff. We could see queues of people now lined up; many of them seemed to be dressed in brightly coloured saris – brilliant yellows and hot pinks. I urged them to go now before the crowds thickened and asked if they would also get me something to eat. Whilst I waited for them, I looked at a product for sale: containers of kephir yogurt that were piled into a pyramid, with white, dark green and red packaging. I was going to buy some until a woman told me that she thought it was a bad product. My brother returned with food but had been unable to buy me anything that I could eat – there was nothing without wheat.
Later, I went to David Jones. As I walked down the aisle, I spied a table of unusual leather bags under a sign saying 50% off. I could see in particular a stylish black bag that was, for some reason, called a smoking bag. As I approached the table, someone removed the sign and instead erected another saying a further 25% off. I was quite excited and inspected the bag with intention to buy until a woman called my name and said that it wasn’t the bag that I needed, that it was a bad product. I left the bag and walked through the store with the woman. She changed into a younger girl wearing a school uniform and we talked about her job at the store. It was Christmas time.

nightmare spell

I was living in the street where my parents live in Newcastle. I had an apartment underneath their town house, accessible via an entrance down a path running alongside their house. Across the road was a huge old house, built in the early days of Newcastle’s settlement. The house had two or three floors, the bottom floor lower than street level; stone steps led steeply down from the road to the front door. A lady as old as can be imagined—pruned, almost mummified— lived in the house. In the daylight hours I had visited her house, uninvited. I do not remember why, just a sense that I had been there whilst she was out of the house. Now, it was night and I was compelled to go outside in the dark while the neighbourhood was sleeping. There was a wild wind blowing and the ground seemed to shift under my feet. Everything was dark, shadowed, but across the street I could see the lights on in her house and the silhouette of the old woman clattering about, pacing the floor. I could hear her voice through the wind (or perhaps carried by it) chanting, appealing, She seemed to be drawing me to her, calling me in. I was on the footpath outside my house, the wind pulling me to her. I struggled to climb the grassy slope into my parents front garden, but the wind and the shifting ground conspired to drag me, take me, across the road to her house. The ground became sand, softer and unstable, and I was magicked slowly to the top of the stone steps. I reached out in the dark and felt the cold, rough stone under my fingertips. I found a new strength, desperate not to be dragged into the well of her front yard, and fought my way through the invisible tide, back across the road. I reached the grassy slope once again and drew on all my energy to climb it. I became entangled in fencing wire and rose bushes, unable to go any further. I cried out for help, hoping that someone would wake. A woman I know appeared from inside the house and came for me. Strangely, she looked calm and unaffected by the howling wind and the moving ground, and looked at me with kindness, somewhat perplexed by my struggle. Behind her, a mirage of B appeared, calling me toward her, encouraging me forward.

comic routine

I was one of several people who had been asked to appear as a stand-up comedian in front of a live audience. I was backstage listening to the person performing before me, firing jokes and one-liners, and the large audience laughing raucously. It came time for my routine so I walked on stage and crossed to a high stool, where I sat. I looked around and realised that the audience had thinned out dramatically—perhaps only fifteen or so people, mostly very young, were left. I also realised that I had come on stage too early, that the MC was only now introducing me and there I was, already sitting on the stool, missing the opportunity for a grand entrance. The buttons on my top were undone, and while the MC chatted amiably to the crowd, I fiddled with the buttons, trying to do them up again. I saw the MC turn to look at me, embarrassed at my ill-timed entrance and my disarray. It was then that I also realised that I didn’t have a routine, that I didn’t know any jokes. I trawled my memory but couldn’t rake up anything funny at all. I wondered how I would fill the minutes allocated to my performance and my mind was blank.

naked dance

I had choreographed a dance involving about eight people and the day came when we were to present the piece to an audience. I walked into the studio, late, and to my surprise, the dancers were all naked. Men and women swanned about, dancing beautifully, stretching supple backs, strong legs, and expressive arms, all entirely bare fleshed. I was horrified that I would have to remove my clothing, on the one hand admiring the other dancers and understanding that the dance was all the more spectacular and real because of the truth of nakedness, on the other, fearing the judgement that revealing who I really was to others would invite. I noticed that the dancers were all different shapes and sizes, in particular, one short woman stood out to me, her imperfections simultaneously her beauty. I stood at the edges of the dance floor, talking in a low voice with my mentor, marking time to try to find a way that I could perform the dance without the potential humility of being publicly naked, or perhaps by coming to terms with my own body and performing with total confidence and ease.

house in alstonville

I found a deceased estate property in Alstonville, northern NSW, or rather, I came upon it. A house surrounded by a vast grassy stretch and protected from the road by a steep hill on one side; the house was not visible from the street. There were other people there, but I knew that I was now the rightful owner of the house though I might not live there immediately. I walked through the house, from room to room, spreading mulch made of lawn clippings, over and inside all of the cupboards, the benches, the floors and the shelves, preparing the house. Someone asked me what I was doing and, knowing it appeared odd, I could not quite explain. I just knew that I must make the house ready for growth, for fertility. My brother was there and I told him that I was going to build verandahs and a swimming pool which would be under the cover of a thin roof adjoining the house. I walked outside and could see people walking along the winding grassy path around the hill, toward the house—welcome strangers. There was a fish pond dug into the ground that was in need of attention but the gold fish were still alive.

seal & baby

It was either early evening or early morning—I am not sure which. The light was dim, the sky streaked with dusky pinks and blues, and the moon was shining softly. There was a vast lake or a sea, the water very still and quite shallow but dark. Though it wasn’t murky, I couldn’t see through the water to what might be swimming below. It was time to wade out to where I had earlier set some kind of fishing trap to see what I had caught. Some other people, mostly men, were also wading out to their fishing baskets. The men were wearing long wading boots to protect their legs from unforeseen dangers. I was concerned as, although I was wearing boots, they were not wading boots and only came up to just above my ankles. I was aware of my skin on my legs gleaming white in the moonlight as I cautiously waded into the cool water. It was very quiet. Further out I spied a large seal watching me. The seal slipped under the water and swam toward me. I hurried back out of the water away from the seal but the seal pursued me onto the sandy shore. He (or she, I am not certain) opened his mouth and closed it gently around my arm. His teeth were strong but he did not bite me; it was as though he was showing me that I could trust him. He wanted me to go back in the water. I scratched his back and belly like I would a dog, and he seemed to like it. He moved around and closed his mouth around my other arm, still careful not to hurt me. I began to relax.

I woke and when I went back to sleep a while later…

There was a knock at the door. A woman and I answered the door. I was a small child but I was thinking as an adult. I felt like I was both the woman and the child. A seal was at the door holding a beautiful baby in its black shiny flippers. The baby had dark hair and eyes and was very young—close to newborn. The baby spoke to the woman saying “Will you hold me now? Are you ready to love me?” I could sense the baby’s urgency to be in the arms of a mother who was warm and dry, rather than cold and wet. The woman took the baby from the seal and said that she would love this baby the most, that this baby would come first above her children. I understood that the baby had been in the pool downstairs, waiting, for at least nine months, and that somehow I hadn’t acted soon enough, that I should have gone down to the pool and into the water long ago to bring the baby home. I couldn’t fathom why I hadn’t and why the seal had had to leave the water and make its way up flights of stairs to bring the baby to us.

drawing and desire

I was looking for something that I had packed away long ago. I was in a bedroom of the house I grew up in, searching whilst other people were sleeping. I lay down on the floor and looked under the bed, pulling out boxes that were wedged in tightly. The boxes were full of beautiful jewelry: diamond brooches, sparkling necklaces, precious stone rings and bracelets. I discovered exquisite vintage clothing, silk scarves with fringing, velvet dresses, coats and lingerie. I looked until I found some colour pencils, took them and packed the rest of the things back under the bed.

I drew a picture of a group of people in relationship with one another—one man and three women. The man was dark, one of the women was Indian and another was pregnant and had small children. The man was having or had had a relationship with each of the women and one of the women was attracted to another woman in the group. I managed to convey the intricacies of their relationships by using different colours, expressions and symbols to visually explain their thoughts and desires. I used a white pencil to show the things that were abstract rather than physical, outlining rather than filling in the symbol, to represent what the other characters couldn’t see.

Because of this picture, I went on to create a picture book for adults that was beautiful and erotic in nature. My life changed and I was successful and abundant with newfound freedom and insight.

I then went back in time to when I was a teenager. I was sitting on the ground, leaning against a brick wall of the church I went to in my youth, watching as a couple of people took photographs of a girl I knew then: C. She was meant to be modeling a long jumper that sufficed as a dress. Another girl came along and they started photographing her in the same jumper. She was tall and athletic with blond hair and green eyes. I spoke to the girl and told her that I was from the future. I wondered if she would remember this moment later in life. She told me she was 16 so I realised that I was younger than that; younger than I had imagined I was. I told her that in the future I was an artist and writer, and said it was probably difficult to imagine as I was so young, quiet and dreamy at this age. We kissed and then she was sick. We went inside the church hall to get a drink of water from the kitchen and so she could rinse out her mouth. There were women working in the kitchen and I knew our being there was disturbing them. I felt angry and pushed aside. I felt as though I was not welcome.

I went into the hall and there was a person. I knew that I had known this person across lifetimes and said that maybe this time we could work it out.

flight and fight

I was flying above the heads of people in a shopping centre. I seemed to be invisible to most people, although others looked up and recognised me as I went past. As I flew by the escalators, I saw my friend R heading down to the next level. I called her name and struck an amusing pose; she looked up, waved and laughed. I flew along corridors and in and out of shops looking at things. When I flew into a jewelers, I became confused by the bright lights and the mirrors and crashed into a mirror that I thought was the exit. I fell down on the floor and decided to pretend that I had been browsing in the shop and had fainted. I knew that they could not know that I had been flying. I lay there until the store manager came over to see what the noise had been. I pretended to be disoriented but left the shop abruptly when he suggested that I come with him to his car. I didn’t want to. I ran out through the streets through West End. Along Hardgrave Road, I saw an acting agent I used to know. He was living above the shops. He took me into the kitchen of a café and introduced me to some women who had visited a close friend’s business very recently; they complained about the price of goods. I defended my friend and when I didn’t feel that I could make them understand they way things were, I picked up a kitchen knife and fought with them. One of the women also grabbed a knife and we had a sword fight. I swiped my knife through the air and cut her blade in half. I then put down my knife, realising that the situation was ridiculous, and left their company.

difficult situations

I was part of a group of people who were gathered at a university. We were all travelling on an escalator, up to the floor where our class would take place. At the third floor, some of the group, led by G, stepped off the escalator and continued on foot up the stairs. The rest of us wondered why when it became apparent that toward the top, the escalator became narrower and spiraled around in tighter and tighter circles, so that we were forced to step off the escalator onto an extremely small platform, at precisely the right time or we would either be squashed against the ceiling or fall off the escalator to our deaths at the bottom. We were packed so tightly on the escalator that it was doubtful that any of us would be able to make it off without harm. It was moving quickly. As I approached the platform, the person in front of me was having trouble alighting the tiny platform, so my opportunity to make it off the escalator was particularly brief. I stepped out onto the platform and only had a second to gain my balance, while the person behind me missed her opportunity altogether. I tried to then step into a chute that would take me down to the correct floor, but I felt terribly afraid and backed away. I sat down on a wooden bench and waited for my heart to stop pounding and my legs to stop shaking. I wondered if G would appear and help us. Eventually, I again approached the chute, but now, it was so small that I was unable to fit inside it. It was only the size of a standard letterbox.

Later again, I was driving down Bender Parade in Newcastle, in the neighbourhood of my childhood. My car, a big white sedan, had a problem, perhaps a crash as, although I cannot recall an accident, the bonnet and the road in front of the car were covered in sharp shards of glass. I decided to get the car home which was in the street adjacent to the road I was on. First, I had to get the car to the bottom of the hill so I released the handbrake and followed the car down the street, keeping a tight grip on the back end of the car to stop it rolling freely down the hill. There was a kind of lip protruding from the boot of the car so I was able to hang onto it. Eventually, I slowed the car at the bottom of the hill where I needed to turn it left and push it up the street to my house where I thought I could park it on the driveway. (The junction of these two streets, Bender Parade and Clayton Crescent, was where my maternal grandparents lived when they were alive.) I stood behind the car and pushed with all my strength. My shoes slipped on the bitumen and I made very little progress. Whilst I pushed, I also wondered how I would get inside the car to put the brake on when I/if I made it to the driveway. There seemed to be no solution to the problem.

planes - 25 nov

B and I were sitting on our verandah in the early hours before dawn. Our apartment must have been somewhere on the Kangaroo Point cliffs as we looked out over the city from that direction. As we watched, about sixty huge aeroplanes in a V-formation, flew slowly across the sky. The planes were all very different to one another: some passenger planes but mainly fighter planes, all travelling to the same place. There was very little noise. A second group of planes in the same V-formation flew almost soundlessly across the sky. As soon as they were out of sight, dawn broke. We knew that we had witnessed a secret government plan and felt afraid, as though the country may be going to war. As we spoke of this, we realised that we were no longer sitting on our verandah, but in the cockpit of a helicopter. We could feel the vibrations of the engine as we hovered above the city.

king wave

I was walking with members of my family along the shore. We were separated from the ocean by the ocean baths and a high wall, and yet there were rock pools and shallow water on our side of the wall. We were walking slowly, dipping our feet into the rock pools and splashing through the water. The light suddenly changed and we looked up to see a giant king wave bearing down on us behind the wall. It was enormous, perhaps the size of a five storey building. We only had time to lie flat on the ground. My uncle cradled a baby in his arms, holding it against him. I called to my sister who was behind us, to ensure that she was aware the wave was coming. Then the wave hit and we could only hope that we would survive.

my death

I went into the back bedroom at my grandparents’ house in Newcastle. The house was much as it was when they were alive, but they were not there. I remembered the fear I used to have as a child about that particular room and realised that I no longer felt that way. I lay on the bed, which faced the opposite direction to its real-life position, and conjured the sensation of being my grandfather.

The room changed and instead of the window looking out over the fence, it became a doorway which opened out onto Queen Street, Brisbane. It was about four in the morning. I could hear a pack of young men making their way down the street; they were boasting about how they had beaten up a girl earlier in the night. I knew there would be trouble and waited quietly on the bed. One of the men came into the room and slashed me slowly with a small silver knife – I could feel my hands being sliced open but I didn’t look down. I managed to wrestle the knife from him and stabbed him several times, finally thrusting the knife into his groin and twisting to make sure it wounded him badly. He fell to the ground, blood pouring out of the wound & forming a puddle around him. Someone who seemed to be my brother (although not my real-life brother) came into the room, shocked by the scene. I asked him to call the police. He hesitated, studying the body on the ground, and then left the room. Suddenly, the rest of the gang, armed with baseball bats and knifes, entered the room and my original attacker stood up. They pushed me outside onto the street and began to beat me up. I resigned myself to death and closed my eyes. Next I was a spirit. I came back to the site of my murder a short time after and watched as my brother vomited beside the enormous pool of blood on the road.

running & safety

I was running away from something—a machine like a robot. It was short but moved quickly and was gaining on me. We were tearing through the corridors of an institution that housed lecture halls, rehearsal studios, theatres and more. It was multi-leveled and vast. I realised that the robot would have trouble following me up and down stairs, so I raced into a central stairwell and ran as fast as I could up the zigzagging staircase, winding my way to the uppermost level of the complex. Once there, realising that the robot would be in hot pursuit via another means of getting to the top, I ran out onto the landing and, following another woman, I jumped over the railing and slid on my bottom down a sloping wooden structure like the tiers of seats in a theatre, minus the seating. The slide to the floor went on and on as I steered myself around architectural objects, shooting down at high speed. At the bottom, the woman and I ran across the foyer through the automatic glass doors, out across a grassy square to a building on the other side. We were flushed and laughing. I realised that I had had fun and she commented on how well I looked.

Later, I was sitting around a table with a group of people I knew and loved in a house where we all lived. It was night and we were quietly talking. A big man came in and sat with us. He had just woken up and he smelt of stale alcohol. He was hairy and brutish, his bare arms punching the air as he shouted about this and that. I knew there would be trouble, specifically something concerning me, so I did my best to quietly leave the table and exit out the front door. He realised I was going and roared after me. I fled down the stairs into the dark garden and, knowing he would assume that I took off down the street, I doubled back around the house and waited around the side behind a bush. He thundered down the cement driveway and up the road whilst I crept back up the stairs and signaled to everyone to be quiet, I hid back in the bedroom area of the house. Everyone knew that I was in danger and kept silent. My friend C was there and she took me in her arms for a moment, saying she understood, before I found a discreet position behind a bed.

Later again, I was at a party in a backyard that sloped down away from the house. There was a table set up under a canopy from where a few men were serving drinks. I was standing in front of the makeshift bar, watching a group of people sitting at a table not far from the bar, further down the slope, as well as keeping an eye on a bunch of men who were standing on the verandah overlooking the yard. There were plastic glasses of sparkling and beer, none of which looked very appealing. I was talking with the guys serving drinks when there was a thudding sound from up near the verandah and raucous laughter. One of the drunk men had thrown himself off the deck, bellyflopping onto the grass below. He got up and did it again. Others followed suite, recklessly allowing themselves to fall, even though the verandah was high above the ground. I was dismayed at their behaviour, knowing that it would end badly. Even the men serving drinks began to act badly—they became rough and unpredictable. Eventually, the crowd disappeared and I looked around me. There was only one person left, a lovely woman with dark hair. We embraced and I told her that I loved that she was dependable, that I could count on her. We walked out of the space together and went to our home. There, we each went to our respective rooms and threw open the windows which had been sealed by huge wooden doors. The light flooded in and reached the innermost rooms of the rambling house. We rearranged the furniture and made ourselves, finally, at home.

siblings

Strange dreams.

My sister and I were sleeping in a double bed in our childhood bedroom. Our bed was directly in front of a low set window. In the darkness, my brother crept through the window and lay two fully blown yellow roses on our bed, each with a card. I woke and he was disappointed that I had seen him leaving us gifts. I picked up my card and could see that it was identical to my sister’s card – both had pictures of beautiful fairytale images on the cover in purple hues. Inside the card, my brother had written a message. It was somewhat shorter than the message to our sister, but I knew that because my birthday was coming up, he would write more inside my birthday card. I was worried about him and wondered why he was bringing us gifts. Was he leaving?

I was in the home of my teenage years and it was night. I could hear someone at the front door so I opened it. A version of my sister walked straight in. Though she looked like my sister, I knew it was not her. This person was taller, bigger in every way, and seemed to be only half-present. She walked up the stairs, along the hall and into my bedroom, where she lay down on the floor and crawled under the bed. I followed her upstairs and saw where she was hiding, so I pulled her by the ankles out from under the bed. I told her that she had to leave even though I felt concern for her. I reminded myself that this wasn’t really my sister. She ran down the stairs intending to hide in another part of the house, but my brother appeared and tackled her to the ground. He too told her that she had to leave. I wondered where my sister was. I noticed the curl of my brother’s hair.

climbing

I was driving in traffic up a steep hill. As I neared the top, my car slowed and struggled. It felt weak, unable to make it. I pressed my foot on the accelerator but the car flipped sideways and I fell out onto the road. I lay on the road, gripping the hot tar with my arms and legs, trying not to slide back down the hill. I felt stuck, unable to stand or move forward, as the traffic swerved around me.


A friend dropped me off, somewhere in the back streets of Kotara in Newcastle. I didn’t recognise the area but the roads seemed to be in a valley, lined with trees and shaded; they criss-crossed and twisted like a labyrinth. I walked the streets, in and out of neighbourhood properties, trying to find the right place. I walked into a house where I seemed to be expected. A meeting was taking place: four or five young men in their early twenties and a woman a little older than me. She started taking the meeting and it quickly became apparent that it was about a sales job. For some reason, the woman mentioned that she was forty-one and, although I am still in my thirties, I stood up and said that I was also forty-one and too old to be at this meeting—I didn’t want or need this job. I walked out the door, thinking that the rest of her meeting probably wouldn’t go too well. Outside, I was uncertain about which way to go. I surveyed the streets, wishing that my friend had waited for me. I felt that I should choose the steepest hill for surely that would lead out of the valley. Reading the street signs, I chose a street and with cement stairs leading straight to the top. I climbed the stairs but as I neared the summit, I began to lose the strength in my upper legs. I had to use my arms and my legs to climb the stairs, to keep going, so that I would make it to the top.

run over

I was driving with other people in the car. I think there were three of four of us. I turned a corner, taking it only slightly too fast, but couldn’t slow the car adequately for what was ahead. I could see that people were crossing the road but couldn’t seem to slow down enough. As I drove around the corner and straightened out on the adjacent road, I ran over a woman who was crossing the road, driving at a very slow speed. We, in the car, listened as first the front tyres and then the back tyres ran over her. It sounded very much like driving over a speed hump. I was instantly in dread, not only for the woman and in expectation of her injuries or death, but for the guilt and remorse I would feel. Strangely, as we hopped out of the car, I felt very little and I was surprised.

stolen water

I was at a party. I brought a bottle of San Pellegrino sparkling mineral water with me to drink throughout the night. I put it in the refrigerator along with other people’s drinks, whilst I helped the hosts with some food. I talked with a few people but felt quite isolated from the crowd. Early in the evening, I went to the fridge to get my water but the bottle was missing. I looked around the kitchen but I couldn’t see it anywhere. I began to ask people if anyone knew who had taken my water. No one seemed to know. A woman suggested that she make me a cup of tea but I refused the offer. I felt very angry that someone had taken the water and I was determined to find it. I walked through the rooms of the house looking for the water, and then went outside, searching further. I could see a huge crowd of people gathered about a concert area, like people at a festival. At the edge of the crowd I could see some friends that I used to spend time with when I was in my late twenties. I went over to the group – they were drunk and lying about on rugs – and there was my water, almost all gone. I found out that it was S that had taken the water, not caring that it wasn’t his, and had used it as a mixer for their drinks. There was another bottle of water there that I could have taken, but I didn’t want it – it wasn’t as clear, as clean and cold as my water. I yelled at him, telling him that he had no right, that he should provide me with another bottle of water, that he had taken what was mine. I went to walk away and then felt like I should apologise for being so worked up, mainly so that the group would not think badly of me, but when I went to speak, the words wouldn’t form – I had no voice. I knew that I could not apologise as I really was not sorry, that I truthfully felt upset and wronged, and that if they judged me for that then they were judging the true me. I left the group.

canvases

I was waiting at my grandmother’s house for the courier to come and deliver canvases, early in the morning. The truck arrived but instead of parking in the driveway, the driver maneuvered the truck up onto the verandah, blocking the doorway. My father and I could not sidle around the truck so we took the old goods lift, which suddenly appeared in the wall, downstairs to the garage, intending to guide the truck downstairs so that we could transfer the canvases directly into the lift. Once there, I realised that the truck was too tall to fit in the garage so my father and I told the courier that we would meet him upstairs, if the driver could pass the goods from the back of the truck into where we would be waiting in the loungeroom. We hopped back into the lift and pressed the button. The lift traveled up and past our floor, the doors not opening, and then it began to behave erratically. First it plummeted toward the ground. I called to my father, asking him to curl his legs up off the floor so that, should we crash, our legs would not be broken. Next the lift shot off sideways down the street, cruising down several blocks before returning to the garage. By the time we made it back, the courier had left and had unpacked the canvases into the garage. Instead of four canvases of the correct size, there appeared to be about thirty five canvases of very odd sizes – way too small or tall and very thin. They were also shoddily made, the canvas not attached to the frames adequately. Moths flew out of the packaging protecting the frames and I could see that they had eaten through the fabric in areas.

I was very relieved to wake and welcome the actual courier who delivered four beautiful canvases this morning.

somersault in water

I was on campus at the university I went to nearly twenty years ago, although it was very different. There was an area with several swimming pools and I was heading there to go for a swim. Instead of entering the area through the main doorway, I came up into it via one of the swimming pools which was drained of water, through a window in the wall. I noticed the blue tiles of the pool as I climbed out of the deep pit, up a metal ladder to the cement floor above. Once there, I put my outer clothes aside and, in my underwear, dived into the clear water of the central pool. I swam to the other end of the pool and hopped out, onto the warm cement. I then tried to do a backward somersault: I lay on the cement on my back and stretched my legs up and over my head, attempting to touch them to the ground behind and then flip my body up. No matter how hard I tried or how much energy I put into it, I remained lying on the ground. A young woman who reminded me of a girl at university, climbed out of the pool holding a baby girl. She looked at me and said that my inability to move was directly related to drinking wine. I hadn’t had any wine and felt very clear headed. My dear friend A appeared and the three of us went to go back to class. As I was walking around the outside of the swimming pool, I couldn’t resist having one more swim before leaving. I jumped into the water and felt the bliss of cold, the weightlessness of my body in water. There, under the water with my eyes open, I was able to somersault freely. It was wonderful. I climbed out of the pool and, dripping wet, walked back inside. I was aware that I wasn’t wearing adequate clothing even though there were lots of dancers and performers milling about in very little. I could see into class rooms and rehearsal spaces but couldn’t see my group or my friend A.

walking

I was walking the streets of the suburb that I lived in as a child. I was making my way home, although ‘home’ was a house in a different street to the one in which I actually lived. I could see into people’s yards and into their houses as I passed them. As I turned the corner into the street of my house, I noticed three stone owls, garden ornaments, perched on top of a stone wall amidst shrubbery. Though they were carved out of stone, their owlish ears twitched, their beaks opened and shut, and their eyes moved from left to right. I thought it curious, but kept walking. When I reached the verandah of my house, I went to put my key in the lock but noticed that a second door, to the right of the front door, was slightly ajar. I was worried that someone was in the house. I went in through the second door and searched each room but found no one. The house was very pleasant if a little empty – wooden floors and large rooms with big windows. It did not feel as though it were a permanent home.

Later, I was again walking the streets of the same suburb although on the opposite side of the suburb. I wound my way up and down cul-de-sacs, looking for the right way to go. It was late in the afternoon. At times I walked straight though people’s homes, over their back fences and through other properties to the streets beyond. In one of the homes, I met a couple of women who lived there. They were getting ready to go for their nightly promenade along Park Avenue, a fairly busy suburban street. I felt very warm toward one of the women and as we walked along the street, I took her hand. She was tall, willowy and very gentle; I felt protective of her. As I looked at her, she became my friend C. I was very happy to be walking down the road with her.

on stage

I was in the curtain wings waiting to go onstage. I felt anxious as I couldn’t remember the lines or even the play, I just knew that I was required to perform. At the right moment, I walked out onto the stage with another woman. We faced one another and locked our right hands together in a grip much as though we were having an arm wrestle. We moved around one another, holding our arms strong, our bodies engaged in a kind of fight dance. I waited for her to say the first line, thinking that once said, it would trigger my memory and I would know what to do. I heard a man in the audience say how well we moved. I flipped her slowly over my shoulder and we continued our slow dance, interspersed with acrobatic turns. Minutes ticked by. Quietly and in character, I asked her if she had something to say, trying to frame it as though it were a line. She responded that she had nothing to say, that she didn’t know what to say. We moved around each other, around the stage in silence, neither of us able to recall the lines.

drain

A great storm. So much rain pouring from the sky that our home began to fall apart. A hole appeared in the floor against the wall and acted like a drain. Clothing and rugs were washed across the floor and swept down the drain. I tried to block the hole but to no avail. I ran outside and found the outlet where the water was rushing out, my clothes carried along by the water. I scooped out as many items of clothing as I could before they passed by and my opportunity to retrieve them disappeared. I tried to drag the rugs from the water and called out for help as they were so heavy. A few people came to my assistance but we didn’t manage to rescue everything.

fruit, house & cats

I am standing in the kitchen of a house with my mother. I am eating raw zucchini that has been chopped up into chunks. My father arrives home eating a fresh peach. I notice the bright orangey flesh of the peach and can smell its sweetness. We open the front door and outside I can see a whole orchard of peach trees, row upon row of trees dense with ripe fruit. My father goes out into the orchard and I want to go to collect some fruit, but I feel I cannot leave my mother alone in the house – I need to protect her and make sure she is secure. The house is built on one vast square plane with a door in the middle of each side wall – a northern door, a southern door, a western door and an eastern door. I walk around the house, opening each of the doors, looking outside and then securing the doors against danger. I am concerned because the lock for one of the doors is on the outside of the house - I cannot lock the door from the inside. A large tiger walks in the door and prowls around the house. I stand in front of the door and when the tiger approaches me, I wrap the door around me – the door has changed from white painted wood into metal bars that are malleable. The tiger bats me with his paw but I am safe. I have enclosed myself in bars. Next, I am outside the house and I am watching a white lioness and her white cub try to come into our yard under the fence. The mother lion swipes at the fence, her big paws bending the wire. They are very beautiful yet may be dangerous.

Later, I am standing on a street corner buying a plant from a shop. I am outside the shop on the footpath, talking to the assistant over a brick fence. She is one of my closest friends from my teenage years and I am surprised that she is here with her husband. A frightening tiny yellow lion, as big as a small cat, walks along the top of the fence and jumps down onto the ground, circling around my ankles. He is aggressive and bites a small hole in my long white pants. I turn and glare at him and he cowers and runs away, turning into a domestic cat as he goes. He no longer looks so scary. I then see that the other two girls who were my closest friends as a teenager are also working in the shop with their husbands. I miss their friendship and I feel left out of the group.

fallen house

My family and I were standing outside a very old wooden house. The great timber beams were rotting, bearing only traces of the white paint which once coated the house. My father purposefully pulled at one of the beams, dislodging it from the house, beginning the collapse of our home. We all ran across the road to the other side of the street, warning a passing young boy to keep clear of the falling house, and watched as the house crumbled, beams crashing to the ground and cracking, glass smashing and clouds of dust billowing into the air. I covered my face to protect it from the flying debris. A piece of wood hit my hand. We watched our family home end and felt liberated. Animals that had once resided in the house began to emerge from the ruins. An enormous owl, the biggest I have ever seen, rose out of the rubble and flew away – a huge white fluffy owl with brown wings. Other birds flew up into the air and away. Ghostly shapes and spirits streaked the sky dimly, leaving the site. Suddenly a tennis ball pelted toward me. I caught it with my right hand and looked around to see who had thrown it. An incredibly large dog ran out of the fallen house toward us. I threw the ball and it chased it and brought it back. We each had a go at throwing the ball to the dog – my father, my mother and my sister. The dog, a powerful tawny Bullmastiff, enjoyed the game. I couldn’t see my brother.

bus & bullets

It is night. I am hiding by the side of the road, holding a baby girl. I am with a couple of others and we are waiting for the right moment to run across the road and board the bus that is about to go. We can see men carrying guns further up the road, roaming about, and watch as others attempt to run to the bus – some make it and others fall, randomly killed by the men. Almost everyone is aboard the bus and we cannot wait any longer. We make a run for it, our bodies almost doubled over as we cross the street, moving quickly but sticking to the shadows. I shield the baby with my body. We make it unscathed onto the bus and find seats toward the front. I notice that I am perspiring and panting from the dash and panic. I am relieved that we are not hurt but then I look at the baby. She is very still and her eyes are half closed. I ask her if she is alright and pull up her dress; she has been shot in the stomach. The bullet is wedged inside the wound and I don’t know what to do to save the baby. She reaches up and pulls the bullet out. There is very little blood and I simply close the skin back over, trusting that she will heal quickly. I even imagine that in later life she will have a scar with a story. The bus departs and we drive through the night. Much later, I am hungry. I move to the back of the bus to make a snack. I find rice crackers, honey and cheese, so I cover the crackers in honey, spreading it with my fingers, and place cheese chunks on top. I make enough for several others.

rat

I am with a friend on the corner of Wolfe and King Streets in Newcastle. We are trying to catch a rat that is in a drain. There is a large rectangular grate on top of the drain and the rat keeps poking its head out an opening to the side of the grate. The rat looks more like a Tasmanian Devil than a rat. We cover the drain and the grate with our quilt. The quilt is queen-size and filled with feathers, without any cover on it. I can see the diagonal diamond shaped stitching and the yellowing of the quilt. We have a conversation with some people and arrange to leave Newcastle for a few days. We collect the quilt, checking to see if we have caught the rat—we haven’t—and take it into the apartment building on the corner. As we carry it, I notice rat droppings on the quilt and shake it out. We take it upstairs and into an apartment, but there are two young men sitting in the armchairs in the lounge room; we have walked into the wrong apartment. We go into the next apartment but this isn’t the right one either. We climb the stairs and check all of the apartments, but none of them are where we live. I remember that the access to our unit is actually on Wolfe Street not King Street, so we walk back down the stairs, out onto the footpath, round the corner, and in the door on Wolfe Street. We return the quilt to our apartment and decide to get it dry-cleaned upon our return. I look out the window at the blue sky over the ocean and wonder why I am leaving. We decide to go to one of the restaurants across the road for a meal, but I can’t remember which ones are good. I realise that it has been a long time since I lived here.

purple & slavery

I was sitting at a low wooden table in a beautiful candle-lit room. A low-set brown wooden table was covered in ornaments that I had bought to decorate the room: amethyst glasses, aubergine vases, violet cushions. I was dicing a purple onion. My friend and another man came to visit. I was so very pleased to see him, but he was somewhat distant. He told me stories about the women he had spent time with on his birthday.

Later, I was walking through my old high school with an old friend. We were between classes and were not sure which class we should be going to next, so we decided to go and have a coffee or a drink. We walked around the edge of the school yard until we reached the other end of the sprawling set of buildings. We walked in and out of school rooms that had become shops and cafes, looking for somewhere to sit for a while. We inadvertently ventured into a crowded bar playing loud music and immediately went to leave again. My friend A was ahead of me and went through the swinging wooden door. The door swung back and I was trapped inside for a moment, before I pushed the door open and joined her outside. Two men followed us out of the bar and forced us to join them; we were being kidnapped to be sold overseas. I objected and told them I was almost forty, but the men were certain that we would fetch a good price. My friend walked down the stairs and I observed how beautiful she looked. I followed close behind, but rather than walking on the stairs, I floated slightly above them. One man said we would need to do something about my crooked toe, but I looked at my feet and couldn’t see any bent or crooked toes, and felt fearful that he would break and reset the bones of my feet. My feet looked normal to me, although I was floating down the staircase.

flying & swimming in blue

I was in an apartment, high up, overlooking a city and the harbour. I watched as a man, who was somehow an extension of me, stood at the window and made large circles with his hands which were resting just above the glass, not quite touching the pane. The heat from his hands caused steamy streaks to appear, leaving circular patterns on the window. It was evidence of his aliveness, of his life. I passed through the glass and flew out over the harbour. The sky was bright azure and the water below was a deep cobalt blue. As I crossed the waters and reached the opposite side of the harbour, I saw an ocean baths below. I turned and flew above the baths, noticing the white diving blocks at either end of the pool. There was a solitary swimmer lapping the pool using a freestyle stroke. I was excited that I had discovered the pool and decided to swim there in the future. I swooped down into the water outside the baths in the heart of the harbour, plunging into the cold blue. My body immersed in water felt wonderful. I could see a school of fish swimming by. I reached out and closed my hand around a small fish. I could feel it flicking against my palm until I opened my hand, releasing it.

child & broken house

I am walking up the hill to visit an old friend, an old love. I am inside his house along with a group of other people, mainly youth. I am the outsider but I am interested in seeing where he lives and what he is up to. I take a seat with the group, around a table in a space upstairs looking over the living space and divided from the living area only by the height difference and a large bookshelf with square holes to house books and ornaments. I am sitting with my back against the wall, facing the bookshelf, and can see through the square holes, down to the room below and the street outside the house. A small animal or child (I am not sure which) edges along the other side of the table, to a particular shelf in the bookcase and begins to push the ornaments – red glasses and crystal vases – out of the hole so that he can sit on the shelf. My friend catches the ornaments as they are dislodged, patient with the creature and kind. Suddenly, the animal/child dislodges something crucial to the structure of the house and everything begins to fall down; the upper room, the bookshelf, the table and all of the ornaments, avalanching down the walls and landing in the living space below. Smashing and crashing sounds fill the room for a moment. Everyone is alright but the house is wrecked. Broken glass and shelves are everywhere. The child (that is now definitely a small boy) is standing, pale and abashed. I ask him if he would like me to hold him, and he curls up on my lap. I cradle him in my arms, against my chest, and rock gently. He is upset and I tell him that it is OK, mistakes happen. Everything will be alright.

old neighbourhood & niece

I was in the car with my family, driving around the streets of our old neighbourhood – the neighbourhood of my teenage years. I was sitting in the back seat, on the left-hand side, where I sat as a child. We drove up the road around the corner from our house and observed that the people who lived in the houses lining the street—large brick houses with concrete verandahs and brick arches framing them—were standing or sitting outside, filing their nails whilst eavesdropping on each other. We drove around the corner and parked on the street outside our house. We hopped out of the car and I looked up at our house; it seemed much smaller than it used to be and much older. I could see patches of vivid green moss growing on the walls and dark water stains colouring the brick. We walked up and around corner of our block and stood on the other side of the house. The car turned into a smallish bus and I was standing with my family talking about presents for my niece. I realised that I had not given her the present that I had bought for her last year, and now, only a year later, she had outgrown the present – it was too childish for her. I stepped off the sidewalk, climbed the couple of stairs and went into the bus. My niece was inside sorting out her things and I noticed that the present was dropped on the floor. I picked it up and gave it to her – it was unopened. She opened it, unwrapping dark pink satin fabric studded with diamantes, to reveal a gold necklace: a fine chain holding a pendant of her name, written in a cursive script. I asked her if she liked it and she said that she didn’t; I was right, she had outgrown it. I found her honesty refreshing and asked her what sort of things she liked, what her tastes were. We sat next to each other on a seat that ran along the side wall of the bus, my arm around her, and flicked through the pages of a beautiful magazine. We looked at clothing, décor, food and more. It was exciting and I was happy to discover that I enjoyed a similar aesthetic.

rock pool

I am in the water, far out at sea. The ocean is dark, brooding. I swim under the water for a long time and I breathe easily. The night is cool and clear as I swim up to the surface. Although I am still hundreds of miles from the shore, I find an intricate series of rock pools. I stand on a rock in the black glassy water and gaze down into one of the pools. Something moves. Someone is next to me and she says it is a great white. I wonder how a shark that big can fit in the small rock pool, but realise that the pools are all linked under the water by connecting tunnels. The shark may be swimming from one rock pool to another, through the maze, finding its way back into the open sea. We have to go back under the water, but before we go, we arm ourselves with a heavy rocks, one in each hand, selected from the shallows of the rock pools. We will throw the rocks at the shark if it attacks us. I wonder how the rock will have any impact, how I will throw it with any force, under the water. We dive back into the pool and swim down through inky chambers, through weed and cold currents of water, into a cavern under the sea. Although the cavern is submerged deep under the ocean, the floor is a carpet of rock pools and the rest of the cave is filled with air, not water. We emerge from under the water but stay standing in the rock pool. There are two women sitting on a rock at the rear of the cave. They seem preoccupied. We ask them if they have seen the shark but they do not hear us or acknowledge us.

trapped

I was walking down a street late at night. The street became an alley and the alley became a narrow lane. A group of young men crowded the lane and I had no way of escaping. The leader of the group cornered me and injected me with something, the needle not shaped like a standard syringe, instead having several points like a spur. He rolled it across the skin of my stomach, the barbs piercing my skin and the poison flooding my system. I was horrified that some unknown substance was in my body. I could feel my stomach and the right side of my face swelling. I tried to walk out of the lane but the group walked with me. I pretended to be at ease with them, even enjoying their company, but I was afraid and repulsed by their closeness and their scent.

Later, I was in my home and the leader of the group was hanging around the windows, looking in. I wanted to be rid of him. Even when he left with the group, I walked into the kitchen and there were his clothes, dirty and rank, lying on the bench. I could smell him.
I went to seek protection. B and her new friend Lan, a Chinese martial artist, decided to eliminate him.

Next, I was part of a family, a man’s daughter, but I was not myself and the man was not my real life father. We, my father, sister and I, were visiting another man whose house was very interesting; many aspects of the house were automated. In the garage was a false floor, suspended about a metre off the ground, made from ropes woven together like a net and stretched tautly across the entire space. The net provided a sturdy platform on which to lie or sit, but not to stand as our feet could slip through the holes. We each sat at different sides of the net, facing each other—my sister and I were against the long side walls of the garage, while the man and my father were against the two end walls that were both open to the outdoors. The two men were talking. Suddenly, the man pressed a button and the net began to rise up toward the ceiling. It moved slowly higher and higher and the men managed to slip off the net and go outside, whilst my sister and I were trapped, pinned against the ceiling. My sister wriggled her way out of the net too. I called out for help, again and again. Finally, they heard me and came back, but in the meantime, I rolled down toward an open-walled end of the room, the space between the net and the ceiling increasing as I neared the opening, and slipped out. I was embarrassed that I had had to ask for help and then not needed it.

flying

I was outside in a vast grassy space, very near the beach. I wanted to catch a particular bird, a grey pigeon, so I decided to fly. I had two pieces of beautiful red fabric and I held a piece in each hand. I lifted my arms and willed myself up, the wind catching the fabric and sweeping me into the sky. I was flying, using both the force of the wind and my faith in the flight. I flew up and around in giant circles, enjoying the sensation of being in the air. I spiraled over the ocean and up over the cliffs. I saw birds in flight: ducks, seagulls, and even a black swan. I flew over to the swan, wrapped my arms around its neck, kissed it on its bill, and told it that I thought it was beautiful. I then flew back down to the ground, still looking for the pigeon. I thought I would again alight and so I stretched my arms out, the red fabric acting like sails on the wind, and took off into the sky. I rode the currents of air, searching for the elusive bird. I could see far out to sea. I could see people moving about below. Eventually I landed and someone told me that they had seen the pigeon bathing in the ocean baths. I set out to find her.

moving house

We were moving house. Everything was packed into boxes, ready to go. A truck was coming and I was looking over everything for the final time.

Later, we were again at home, but this time everything was in its place. We were going out but there was a sense that someone was coming to look at the house while we were out—a landlord or a prospective buyer perhaps. I hid some papers in the cushion of our lounge; I simply swept my hand over the fabric of the cushion, the fabric parted so that I could lay the papers inside, and then swept my hand back across the cushion, the fabric closing over once again. We then made sure that everything was tidy and in order. Just as we were about to leave, I noticed some grape stems and other matter on the floor that needed to be picked up. I fixed it and we left the house.

cradle

I was sitting on the ground, cross-legged, talking to a child who was sitting on a bench, slightly above me. She was about ten years old; a beautiful Chinese girl. As I spoke with her, I became aware of a much younger child sitting on my right hand side, leaning into me and holding my hand. She was another beautiful Chinese girl, about four years old. As I spoke with the older child, I gently rocked sideways, back and forth, so that I was rocking the younger child, holding her hand. I wanted to cradle her so I picked her up and put her across my legs, and as I did so, she changed so that she was much smaller, a baby, inside a cradle that was shaped like a shoebox. She was lying in the deepest half off the shoebox, and the lid was hinged to the base. The cradle was made from wood. I held the cradle in my arms and noticed that there was an ornate silver mirror kept inside the lid. It was as long as the baby. I took the mirror out and saw that it was engraved with butterflies and birds, with some shimmering details painted in yellow. I put the mirror back into the lid and saw that there was liquid in the lid. I took the mirror out again and wiped under it to protect it. When I put it back in, I looked at the baby and she had changed again. Now she was an old, old woman, but she was still the shape and size of a baby, lying in the cradle. Her face was so old it was almost alien; a tiny bluish woman. I looked at the mirror again and now it was engraved with skulls and bones. It was still very ornate but it looked terribly old and mystical. The cradle now resembled a miniature coffin. The woman spoke to me, telling me that she was ready to die, and I was to rock her to death. I was to help her transition from this life into another.

dark clouds

We were walking along the footpath of Coronation Drive, on the river side, heading out of the city. Ahead, we could see dark grey rain clouds behind the buildings of Toowong. As we watched, the clouds multiplied, clouds birthing clouds birthing clouds with alarming speed. The clouds spread, baby clouds billowing out of larger clouds, rushing across the sky in a wave that quickly spread darkness over the entire city. It was incredible and we knew that something enormous, some huge event was about to happen - a powerful storm or the omen of change. We ran to a bus stop and boarded a bus, needing to get to our destination as fast as we could. First, we sat on a seat that was attached to the outside of the bus. A metal drawer came loose above me and opened, hitting me on the head. We moved inside the bus and sat on a seat on the left-hand side. Again, something hit me on the head. B was beside me and she was very tired. I was aware of contacting my loved ones to check they were safe.

waiting & weak legs

I was on a journey, travelling with another woman. We had stopped for a few nights at place in the bush, staying in a cabin. There were many others staying in tents and dormitory style accommodation – it appeared to be a conference or big event of some kind. I went into the main auditorium and stood backstage, watching acrobatic entertainment and listening to music. After a while, I decided that I had been backstage for far too long, and went to register as a performer. I spoke to a man down the front of the room who consulted a large notepad, checking his time schedule. He wanted to know if I would like to be the last to perform on the final night of the event, but aware that this would make me the headline act, I declined. I was allocated a timeslot as the second performance on the final night. I then felt slightly regretful and promised myself that I would not knock back such an opportunity again. The man said that he assumed I would be singing about food and I was surprised until I realised that it was an organic food event, so I agreed to think of a set of songs about food.

I went outside and joined a queue of people that were waiting to enter water of some kind, perhaps a swimming pool. I sat down for a moment and then found that I was unable to stand again. I tried and tried to stand up but my quadriceps had no strength – none. I was between two children in the queue: the child in front thought I was being funny and the child behind was even more pronouncedly floppy. I held the floppy child up in my right hand, supporting her back though her limbs drooped like a puppet’s.

Later, I was in the home where I lived with my family as a teenager. We were in the loungeroom and I was sitting in an armchair, facing the bookshelf. I couldn’t move my legs. A man came into the room, a stranger, and I called out to my father. Instead of coming into the room, my father ran up the stairs toward my bedroom, thinking I was in trouble and was in my room. Meanwhile, my mother came into the loungeroom and the stranger picked up long-stemmed umbrella and hit her across the legs with it, causing her to fall backwards into another armchair. Seeing my mother hurt, I managed to stand up, cross the room and, with a different long umbrella with a sharp point at the end, first hit the attacker and then stabbed him. At this stage it turned into a woman, the grown-up version of a girl I knew as a teenager. I thrust the umbrella into her chest and pushed downward so that I could see the point jutting out of her thigh. She didn’t die and hardly seemed affected or wounded. It was as though she were made of soft & pliable plastic.

sheep

Driving down a street in the neighbourhood where I grew up, I was looking for an old friend’s house. I realised I had driven past it so I turned around and drove slowly back up the road. I saw her house where she had lived with her mother, father & brother, plus the house next door where her grandparents had lived. Her house was now changed, the walls made of rocks instead of weatherboard, perhaps a rock façade. I went in and found the family having dinner. After greetings, I looked out the window at their beautiful back yard: a vast & lush green lawn with great fig trees and a flock of sheep grazing out the back. The dark grey ram was twice the size of the sheep; I watched as he roamed among the flock. I told my friend’s mother that the garden was exactly as I had remembered it and that I often thought of it, which is strange as it was extremely different from how it actually was.

trying

I was on my way to do an exam. I wasn’t prepared properly and I was trying to find time to go over my readings and notes so that I could brush up before sitting for the test. It was important to me to do well. I had a couple of hours left but it seemed to take a very long time to get to the campus. Eventually, I acknowledged that I would have to sit the exam without studying.
When I actually arrived, I went into a large room with computers on desks in lines around the room. I tried to find a computer that wasn’t already occupied but had trouble finding one. Even the computers desks that appeared to be vacant were being used by people who had temporarily left their desks.
It was dusk. I wandered around the campus and up a hill through the bush to a building housing showers and toilets. Inside, I met a family: a father and his children, three or four boys I think. They invited me over to their house for a meal. I wanted to go but felt uncertain as they seemed to be looking for a new wife/mother.
Next, I was leaving the campus with my mother. We were deciding where to go, perhaps to go to a bar for a glass of wine. We found my car and started to drive away. I was not at all sure of the way. I had to make fast decisions as the road divided suddenly and the traffic was moving very quickly. We drove up an extremely steep hill, the road narrow - only one lane. As we travelled, we caught up with a woman running up the hill in the middle of the road. I sounded my horn as we needed to keep moving fast but were stuck behind her. She moved over and we passed her but ahead were more and more people running up the hill. We suddenly realised that the hill was a dead end – literally. It simply stopped and dropped away to nothing, like a giant triangle, perhaps a kilometer high, had been built, jutting out of the ground. At the same time that we realised this, the car started to go backwards, gaining speed as we went. I pressed the brake with my foot down to the car floor, but still we gained momentum. There was no room and no time to turn around, so I had to reverse all the way back down the hill, absolutely flying, steering carefully back down the narrow road, until we reached the bottom safely and tried to find a different way to go.

makeup & dancing

I was looking in the mirror. I washed my face and immediately began to apply moisturiser. The cream did not absorb easily into my skin so I began to make patterns on my face: white stripes and swirls painted on my forehead, cheeks and chin.

Next, I was walking to an event with a childhood friend. On the way, we dropped into the cosmetics department of a large store, just on closing time. We stood looking at some beautiful products: peachy powders that sparkled under the lights, soft fragrant creams and iridescent blue shadows. My friend, standing to my left, took one of the powders and slipped it into her bag — she stole it. I was amazed, wishing I had some but glad that I was not guilty. A very authoritarian female figure ushered people out of the store. I suddenly noticed that I was missing part of my luggage: a white paper bag that contained something precious to me. My friend went out to see if it was outside whilst I looked around the counter where we were standing. The lady was waiting for us to leave but she gave me a free sample size of the blue eyeshadow. I searched for something – a small bag or container – to put the makeup in to protect it. I found the white bag inside another bigger bag that I was carrying.

We arrived at the event. There were hundreds of people sitting around on the grass and lined up around the edges of a vast field. I noticed the mother of another childhood friend walking past; she had dyed her hair blonde and was with a younger man. Loud music pumped out of speakers and I danced on the grass on the side of a hill. At first, I was the only one dancing and I didn’t really care. The music carried me and I danced looking over a wide view of the land. A young man wearing a grey jumper stood up to dance with me and then many others joined us. We danced with utter abandon. The older men at the event all began a dance to some Village People music it was both funny and fantastic. We had a great time.

jewels and shells

I was inside the gates of a community. The buildings were reminiscent of Chinese architecture: red and turquoise with dark grey roofs that curled like a scroll at the edges. I stood inside a large open-plan house — there were at least fifty children asleep on mats on the floor in neat rows. I seemed to be on a tour of the community. I was led into a grand home with beautiful furniture and lighting, again red and turquoise the predominant colours. A man, perhaps the governor of the community, lived in the home. I was his guest.

I wandered from the house to a small cabin; I recognised the cabin as my childhood cubby house — a one-roomed reddish brown building. I stepped up the two stairs into the cabin and began to sort through my things. It seemed that it was a storage space, a cupboard, containing all sorts of things that I have owned over the years. I was vaguely aware of passing time and the need to really go through everything, to sort it out. I found a wooden jewelry box with Chinese designs carved into the wood. It was similar to a jewelry box I actually own but much larger. I looked inside, searching for a piece of jewelry and found three different pendants. I held each one up to the light, deciding which one to wear.

Next, I was standing in running shallow water, only as deep as my ankles. It was very clear and I could see in detail the light sand and beautiful shells under the water. I picked up a shell: it was as big as my hand and almost flat, white but with a deep pink blush at the scalloped edges as it fanned out. I took a step and picked up another large shell which was shaped like a spiral but again quite flat, white with caramel brown swirls. I dropped the shells back into the water and immediately the sand shifted, partially covering them. I took a few more steps and found very similar shells. I took my time deciding which shells to take as a souvenir.

birds

I was standing in a natural pool of blue-green water – a lagoon. The water was very calm and although it was clean, it was not clear; I could not see through it. B was standing on the shore close by, occupied, with her back to the water. I looked up to see a bird perched on a branch overhanging the water, watching me. It was a vivid green parrot with a red stomach. I said hello. The bird regarded me for a moment before flying down and landing on the water. It floated on the surface of the water, enjoying the swim. It called out and many more birds arrived, circling down and landing on the water. Most of the birds were brilliant green but some were ruby red. We were calm. Suddenly one of the birds decided to duck dive under the water, but once under, the bird panicked and tried to flap its wings. The weight of the water in its wings prevented it from coming back to the surface. A few more of the birds dived under before they realised what was happening, and they too began to drown. The other birds flew into the air and away in fright, perhaps a hundred birds screaming and flying into the sky. Some birds stayed to try to help their mates, diving into the water to retrieve them, but they too became waterlogged. Once the birds were under the water, I couldn’t see where they had gone. I quickly scooped the water with my hands, trying to retrieve birds from the water before it was too late. Sometimes I would find a bird and a couple of them flew away, but a few dived straight back into the water, looking for their mates. I called out to B to help me and she jumped into the water. We were both scooping the water with our hands, fighting time to save as many of the birds as we could. I scooped out one of the ruby-red birds, which remained perched on my hand, looking at me. I could feel her feet clutching my finger. With my left hand I scooped out two more red birds that were already dead. They were wet and heavy in my hand. B and I stopped. We realised that it was too late to save any more birds. It was quiet and I knew that the red bird’s mate was dead. Her eyes were filled with tears.

body experiences

I was in a car in between a few people. I was not in my body but in my brother’s body, and I was aware that I would not be in his skin for very long. I admired my (his) hands as they were so long, strong and elegant. I said that if I had these hands, I could not help but look at them all the time. I could feel pins and needles in the fingertips of each finger. We arrived at our destination and I went back into my own body and my brother was in his. We, various members of my family, stood in a group outside a building. One family member was standing outside our circle, having a beer with a couple of rough, dangerous looking men, who appeared to be out on parole. Although he didn’t say anything, I knew that my brother was very disappointed in that family member and disapproved of his actions as he somehow put the family in danger.
Also in the group were my cousin and his young son. For some reason, they were both caricatures of their real selves. The adult cousin stood about three foot high with a beaming round cartoon face and was very loud and loutish. His son was even shorter, about one foot high, and was showing off. I was trying to ignore the attention seeking antics of these two, mildly offended by their vulgarity. I saw a look of disappointment cross the face of my cousin and I felt softer toward him.

fitness

I was living with two girls who were both very fit. We were meeting out somewhere. When one of the girls arrived, she was salty and sweaty from running through the city to meet us. She looked fantastic – brown and sunned and so muscular. She was naked except for a g-string and some running shoes. She said that she ran every day for fitness and a tan, and because it made her feel great. I asked if she was ever worried about being naked but she said that she was used to it. The other housemate arrived and although she was softer, she too was very fit. I admired the shape of her arms and also the muscular structure of her legs, particularly the muscles just above her knees. I wanted to be as fit as they were.

snake bite, flight & centipede

I was with my brother and sister in the courtyard of our family home. There was a dark green snake on the ground between us. The snake was quite fat and only about a metre long. It was watching us but didn’t seem to be aggressive. I was concerned that it might bite my brother. Suddenly the snake whipped its head out toward me and bit me on the foot. I could see two fang holes, dark against my skin. I went inside to show my father. He was sitting in the loungeroom with my mother and my grandmother (my father’s mother, who is no longer alive). I felt embarrassed about telling them what had happened as I didn’t want to appear weak and I felt I had had a few things go wrong recently. I showed them the snake bite and there appeared to be another two fang holes; an earlier snake bite that I should have seen to long before. My mother and father left the room to seek advice and I sat down facing my grandmother. We were awkward and didn’t know what to say, so she left the room too.

Later, I was flying through the sky with other people, following a beautiful coastline. The sky was brilliant blue, the ocean deeper shades of blue and vivid ultramarine greens, and there were wonderful rock shapes and cliffs along the shoreline. I could see several ocean baths and a myriad of rockpools—I suddenly realised that we were flying over Newcastle. I was so proud of the beauty of the place and called to the others flying, that this was my home. We flew around so that we could see Newcastle from all perspectives: a 360º view. The sun was going down and all of the city lights came on. We could see tall buildings lit up against the twilight sky, street lights twinkling and the ocean surrounding the city. I landed on nearby cliff and had a cry, moved by our scenic flight.

On the clifftop, I could see a bag which I knew to be mine. I went over to the bag and realised that it contained work that I needed to resume. Since I had been gone, a few creepy creatures had moved into my bag which I had to get rid of before I could reach into the bag or begin what I needed to do. I could see a bright orange giant centipede, at least 30cm long, with black legs and fangs. It was eating a fat grub that was also bright orange. There was a smaller, much thinner centipede which I picked up and threw away. I sprinkled some salt on the grub and the bright colour immediately left his body – he died. The large centipede retaliated by shooting a watery liquid out of his mouth, first onto the grub and then extending the arc of his spit, aiming for me. I realised that my sister was asleep on a mat behind me and I was worried that the poison liquid would touch her so I moved away and thumped the ground, the vibrations leading the centipede to shoot the venom at me.

rage

I was in the bedroom of my teenage years, in the house that my family built. I was lying in bed, trying to go to sleep as it was very late at night. I could see a young man walking down the hall and into the doorway of my sister’s bedroom. He looked to be drunk or volatile. He came into my room and grabbed my arms, telling me something. I sat up in bed and relaxed my arms so that his anger was not aroused. He said he would be happy if I made him cous cous and Moroccan dishes, to remind him of his home in northern Africa.

I walked down the hall to my brother’s room. I was looking for something.

Next, I was in a large, open grassy area, at the top of a huge hill. There was a man standing at the top of the hill and I could see a woman run all the way from the bottom of the hill to the top. She was guilty of a crime that now eludes me and she had an obvious attraction to the man. The police had planted the man so that she would confess her crime to him and she would be caught. He asked her to meet him on the riverbank for a romantic afternoon. My attention went elsewhere for a moment or two, and when I looked back, I could see that the man and woman had indeed met by the river, but she was in a rage as she had discovered that he was deceiving her. His mouth, that she had kissed only seconds before, was now open in pain and missing teeth—he was spitting blood. She had hit him very hard and was now running to her car, a huge purple four wheel drive, screaming that she would run him over. She drove her car straight into massive rocks which simply splintered with the force of the solid bulbar at the front of her car. It also seemed to have the power of a bull dozer, as she rammed into trees and stones, pushing them out of the way. Also enraged, he ran to his motorcycle, a huge green bike with a very loud engine. They began weaving all over the grassy expanse at the foot of the hill, chasing each other, trying to run each other down. I was running and running, trying to dodge them both as they drove, at top speed, around and around. I had to keep changing direction. At one point, I couldn’t escape the car and it ran straight over the top of me but I flattened my body to the ground so that it passed over me without touching me. The noise of the two engines and of the tyres skidding in the dirt was deafening. I was frightened.

bison

I flew, low in the sky, and circled above two animals, observing them. It took me a few moments to work out what they were as I was overwhelmed by their enormity and power at such a close proximity. I realised that they were huge bison. The female was dark grey and slightly smaller than the male who was black. I could hear them breathing and snorting. As I flew above them, the male bison looked up at me, watching me fly. He looked into my eyes.

dogs

I was sitting on a deck chair in a backyard, eating a bowl of food. A tiny white dog, a pup, was trying to jump on my leg and eat from my bowl. I stopped him and he made a little whining sound, but when I had finished eating, I looked for him to give him the scraps. A different dog appeared, a grey hound, so I threw it some tofu which it happily ate. Another dog appeared, a brown sausage dog, so I gave it some scraps too. There appeared on the deck chair a plate of quality meats: pastrami, proscuitto and the like. I looked for the white puppy whilst trying to protect the plate from the hungry dogs. A third new dog appeared, a grey sausage dog, which stole some meat from the plate and attempted to creep under the house. I stopped him, made him drop the meat and smacked him on the nose. Immediately, I felt awful for smacking him so I threw him a small portion of the meat that he had taken, wondering if the seemingly contrasting actions would be too confusing. I put my hand forward and the dog growled at me. I was nervous and felt that the dog had no respect for me, so I was in danger. The dog’s eyes looked from side to side and it seemed to consider biting me. While I was preoccupied with the grey sausage dog, the other dogs ate the rest of the meat on the plate. I didn’t see the white pup again.

music

I was sitting on the bed in a caravan of sorts: it had one side that was completely open to the outside – a three walled caravan. There were three women standing between the end of the bed and the opening. They began to sing to me and I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes, listening to their song intently. It was sung to a laid back loop – very contemporary. Their voices were full, mature voices as they were all in their late thirties or early forties. The first woman had a deep voice with a wonderful gravelly edge; she was the narrator of the song and sang the entire first half before the other women began to sing. The second woman had a slightly higher (although by no means high) voice and somewhat brighter, like a brass instrument. The third woman had a smooth deep voice like a cello. Together, they were the instruments creating a beautiful and unique sound.

driving

I was driving at night down the backstreets of a suburb in Brisbane. My car, if you can call it that, was just the seat and a steering stick – like an electric wheelchair, although it was a car. I approached some poles cemented in a median strip and could see that someone had clothed the poles in a woman’s dress – a practical joke that I though rather dangerous. It looked as though there was a woman standing in the middle of the road. I turned down a street and could hear two people talking further down the road: a father and his daughter. I passed them, gaining speed, and turned into another street. I felt uneasy as I could see a large male figure lurking in the darkness. As I passed him, he started to run after me. I tried to speed up and to find the headlights so as I might blind him. He was gaining on me as I raced toward the corner. I was scared of taking the corner too quickly as I might overturn, but I was also scared that if I slowed down, he would catch me. I tried to call out using my deepest voice to make him think that I wasn’t female, and I actually did call out and woke to the sound of my voice in the night.

old friends

I was sitting with a group of people – part of an audience. Behind me sat a man that I have known since we were both two years old. He was talking to me quietly, whispering that he had kept a record of some of the things that I had said and done when I was young, that he remembered our past. I remained facing forward but listened to him, and reminded him that he was my oldest friend. I felt that he knew me.

Next, I was sitting with another group of people, again as part of an audience. Beside me sat S, one of the two identical twins who had been my friends since we were five years old. She put her hand into a packet of food, but when she removed her hand, her finger was bleeding. She started to cry, saying that I had hurt her. I was concerned and touched her hand. I noticed that her fingernails were long and red whilst mine were short and unpainted. I asked her how I had hurt her, thinking that she meant the cut on her hand. She told me that I had not listened to her. That whenever we, a group of friends, gathered together, we did not ask her about herself or her life. I felt guilty and agreed that we usually talked about the ever-changing events of the lives of the others while her life seemed so staid in comparison. She intimated that the constant changes of our lives were an indication of problems in our characters.

Later, I visited S at her house; she was preparing for a wedding to which I was not invited. We talked about how she was going to wear her hair and she showed me how she wanted it to look. I thought she looked nice but also thought that the style was very dated. I felt as though my life was very different to hers.

Later again, I was standing between rows of seats in a stadium. The man betrothed to S came to talk with me. He was tall and laughing, joking about something. I cannot recall more than this.

flying sheep

There was a white sheep flying past. Her wings were rounded — simple, flapping wings without grace. She had large burgundy spots on her coat. After she flew past, I drew her likeness on a piece of scrap cardboard so that I could remember the way that she looked. I drew her wearing ear phones, listening to music as she flew. I named her Sally.

cars

I was driving along a street that had a closed lane, so that only one lane was available. The two-way traffic was blocked and a road worker was doing his best to move the traffic, first the traffic travelling in one direction, and then the traffic travelling in the opposite direction. It was our turn to drive whilst the rest of the traffic waited to one side. As I drove around a blind bend in the road, an impatient taxi driver broke queue and drove directly toward me. I was driving quite slowly so I was able to gently brake to a halt but the taxi driver had to screech to a stop. The noses of our cars touched lightly. He had to reverse all the way back to the end of the queue whilst I moved slowly forward. I turned into a driveway leading to the car park under the David Jones building and called out something to the taxi driver, telling him off. He looked cranky.

Later, I was driving out of the car park. I was behind another car waiting at the gate, a work vehicle. When the gate opened, I rushed out behind the car in front and he moved forward so that I could fit through before the gate automatically closed behind us. Our cars melded into one and I found myself on the back seat of his car. He offered me a cigarette which I refused after considering it. We drove out of the car park.

high-rise

I was living in a high-rise building, one level from the top. I was downstairs in the store that occupied the ground floor of the building. The cosmetic counter was giving out sample bags. I took a white plastic sample bag and went to the elevator in the foyer, ready to go up to my room. I read the floor directory, whilst waiting for the life, and noticed that ‘STAFF’ lived on the third floor from the top. Instead of travelling in a straight vertical line, the lift shot off to one side through an outlet in the wall of the building, and then up the side of the building, zigzagging at times, to the second-top level. I had to hang on to the railing around the walls of the lift to keep from rolling around. Once inside my room, I opened the bag and removed the cosmetics. There were other samples such as a box of small brushes like toothbrushes, made from real bristles and with carved wooden handles. I offered someone else their choice of brushes and they chose three. I selected two for myself and kept another couple for someone special. I also noticed that there were a couple of packets of menthol cigarettes in the bag. I went back downstairs to the foyer which had become a busy hub of activity. I was trying to find something to wear. I went to a walk-in wardrobe that was nestled at the back of the foyer; my cupboard. I looked through my clothes and tried a few things on: a green striped top that I tried to match with some stripey pants. The pants turned out to be part of an old clown costume and they looked way too big for me. I tried on other stripey pants but nothing looked fantastic. I settled on some average-looking pants and went back outside. The younger sister of a close friend was outside, looking for cigarettes. I told her that I had some upstairs that I didn’t want but I was not sure that I should be giving them to her. She said she was going to get some anyway. I noticed that everyone was smoking the new white menthol cigarettes. I made the wild journey back up the lift and found the packets of cigarettes to give to her.

Go-Go, Stacey & Mr Cunningham

A black dog called Go-Go and a white rabbit called Stacey are best friends. They are running around, chasing each other. Mr Cunningham, a dog-man wearing a black t-shirt and moving down the road in a wheelchair, throws coins at Go-Go and Stacey. Much to Mr Cunningham’s displeasure, they catch the coins with ease. They throw the money back at the dog-man. It lands on his vast stomach and a small puff of dust billows from out of his t-shirt where the coins land.

Black Inked Diamond Python

I am in deep water. There seems to be water everywhere. To my left, B is showering, standing in a cubicle like a cage that is raised just above the water. There is a Black Inked Diamond Python swimming in the water. His long body swirls around me, curling and twisting in the depths below. He is a long snake with a black diamond pattern running down his back and with rainbow tips at both ends of his body – his head and tail are brightly painted red, blue, green and yellow. B doesn’t want to come out of the shower until the python is gone, so when he swims close enough to me I grab him at either end of his body. He writhes in my hands and it is difficult to tell which end is his head and which end is his tail. Eventually, rather than being caught, he opens his mouth and bites off his rainbow tail. Black ink seeps out of his wound into the water and clouds over his head poisoning him. He dies.

child

I was visiting the home of a woman and her child. It was late afternoon and I felt in limbo, not sure of what to do. Earlier, there had been more people gathered, but now, the visitors had all left. The woman’s sister had gone to be with her partner and child – they had a feeling of ‘home’ with one another. I asked the woman, who looked to be in her mid-fifties, if she was happy that she had had a child and she told me that she was too old and too tired. Though she loved him, she wished she hadn’t. It was time to rest. I lay on a bed near the window with B. We looked out and could see a woman walking along the street. As she came nearer, she became younger and divided into two young girls of about fourteen or so. Both had long frizzy hair and were part indigenous. They came up to the window and began talking to us. They looked at my fingernails and commented upon the wide moons at the base of my nails (that looked much bigger and more definite than in real-life), saying they were genetic and mutant. (?) One of the girls asked if she could cut my fingernails and although I am particular about how they are cut, I let her. She cut the nails of my right hand rather haphazardly and I knew I would redo them later, but it was important to me that we formed a bond. When she had finished, she became younger and younger until she was just a baby. I rolled her onto her back and tickled her tummy, before rocking her to sleep. I put her up on a high shelf, toward the back and nestled between some soft toys, so that she wouldn’t fall out. I went and checked on the rest of the house. There were children sleeping in a couple of the rooms. I went back to where I had placed the baby, trying to work out if the shelf was the safest place for her to sleep.

wedding & butcher

My sister and I were preparing for a wedding. It was the day of the celebration and the guests were gathering. We arrived at the building where the wedding was to take place: a ground-level hall with stone arches and stone slab flooring. We were wearing white. We walked past the ceremonial area arm in arm and I realised that we were to be married to one another. I was alarmed and spoke with my sister saying that although I loved her, I did not want to get married to her. She agreed. We called off the wedding.

I was standing in line at a butcher shop. The shop fronted onto a stone paved footpath, open to the outdoors. In front of me at the counter was a woman with blond hair, wearing a white nightdress. She was barefoot. She ordered a big slab of meat which a butcher was weighing on a set of scales. She ordered a bigger piece, lamb I think, which he proceeded to weigh. She was telling the butcher that she was in love with another butcher who worked there. She wanted the first butcher to tell the other man of her love for him. He suggested that I was close to the man and that I could tell him. The woman turned around and begged me to tell the butcher of her love for him. Although I empathised with her, I felt resistant and protective of the butcher.

walking on hands

I was walking in the late afternoon sunshine with some other women, along winding paths, through the trees. We were happy and talking—going home. We started down a hill with steps carved into the grass. Instead of walking upright, I walked on my hands with my body stretched out behind me, at right angles to my arms. I felt the edge of each step against my palms. My arms were strong and my body felt like it was floating.

dogs & money

Dogs
I was standing at the back of a small crowd. We were all facing a stage of some sort. A black dog suddenly leapt toward me through the crowd, placing his paws on my chest, before vanishing. Another dog followed, this one small and white with rounded ears, jumping up and placing tiny paws on my chest before leaving the room. A third dog, with orangey woolly hair, leapt up through the crowd, placing two paws on my chest. I patted all three dogs affectionately and told the last dog that it was beautiful. They seemed to be displaying gratitude and loyalty.

Money
I was worried about money. I had had an art exhibition and knew that I had sold lots of paintings, but I did not have any money. I wanted to check my wallet but someone was withholding it. I demanded it and they handed it over. I looked through the wallet and pulled out a bunch of invoices or receipts, proof that I had sold a lot of work. I started sorting through them, trying to work out how much money I should have. I looked away for a moment, and when I looked back, I had a pile of money. I felt great relief and happiness to have finally found my own wealth.

lucid dream

I had a lucid dream. In ‘real-life’, the wind was howling, whistling through invisible cracks in the building. I was wakeful but slipped in and out of strange sleep. I closed my eyes and found myself in a bedroom that I thought to be mine. It was about three-thirty in the morning. I opened the door to the open-plan living space and realised that we had left loud music playing on repeat. I rushed over to the stereo and turned it off. The sound of the wind carried into the dream, filling the void left by the music, and I realised that I was dreaming. I looked around and discovered that the wind was whistling through a telephone jack. I pushed off the ground and leapt onto a table, moving through the air softly, almost flying. I reached over and switched the phone jack off. The wind quieted but could still be heard softly blowing in a thin and delicate whisper. I decided to experiment with gravity and movement, knowing that this was a dream. I jumped from the table, a grand jeté, gliding through the air and down to the ground some metres away. I then lay down on the wooden floor and levitated about thirty centimetres from the ground. I wanted to fly higher, willing myself to do so, but my body obeyed only some of my mental commands. I had a strange tingling sensation running through my limbs, as though I could not move them at all. I woke and the tingling, petrified feeling remained in my arms and legs for some time.

swimming

I was talking with two jazz musicians – both old men with blue eyes. Following the conversation, I dived into an indoor swimming pool, along with a few other people. I swam with great ease and power, circumnavigating the pool again and again, dipping and rising like a porpoise. Someone handed me a board, much like the lid of an esky, and I began to ride it around the pool, using it to propel myself up and out of the water, shooting up higher each time, until I nearly touched the extremely high ceiling, the blade of an oscillating fan brushing against my cheek. I put the board aside and swam down underneath the water to the bottom where there sat a girl of about twenty-five, with black swirling hair. I joined her, sitting on the bottom of the pool, looking around through the blue water at the legs of the other swimmers. It was peaceful and we could breathe as normal. I asked her why she wasn’t swimming on the surface with the others and she told me that she had a problem with her neck, perhaps a fracture. I tried to think of how I could help her, deciding that massage was too risky with such a problem, but felt that I could help to heal her or at least make the pain subside. I warmed my hands with my breath and placed them on the back of her neck firmly, leaving them there so that the warmth would penetrate her body. I repeated the process several times until she was well and wanted to swim to the surface. We hopped out of the pool and had to leave this part of the building by means of a series of escalators. I was worried as I had bare feet, the ridged metal escalator stairs painful under the soles of my feet and potentially dangerous. I found the process of choosing and stepping onto the escalator stairs very overwhelming. Finally, we reached a counter where everyone was lining up to collect tickets. I was handed two drink tickets and I realised that it was New Year’s Eve. I momentarily wished that I had not driven so that I could have some champagne, but then decided that I was happy to drink mineral water. I found a bar and went inside, looking for my friends.