friend, noisy men and colour

All fragmented, scattered dreams of late. Difficult to piece together and communicate.

I was outside the house of my late grandmother and grandfather, having walked the streets to get there. It was now dark and I wanted to go in. I found my dear friend, also heading there, and we arrived together. I felt that we were closely bonded, though we hadn't seen each other for some time. His family and some of mine were inside. I noticed a huge painting on the wall, a dark blue and green abstract of a woman, painted in acrylics. I recognised the style as my friend's wife's. I went into number one bedroom to change my clothing, but detoured to another place, another house. There, I was expected to eat dinner and, although I wanted to see the people there too, I was rushing as I knew I was expected back at my grandmother's house before midnight. I understood that I was to meet someone there. The dinner was delicious seafood  in broth. I didn't want to hurry, but I felt urgent. After dinner, I remembered that I needed to change my clothing. I found a suitcase of clothes and rummaged through it, finding a pale pink shift, jeans, a chocolate coat and brown boots. This would do. I changed and started the journey back, but it was nearing twelve and I could not remember how to get there.

Later, I was driving out of an industrial estate. Buildings ringed with scaffolding, men leaning on ladders, machinery roaring. I wanted to be somewhere quiet. I drove along the footpath, as though walking, and waited at the lights. My car diminished, becoming nothing more than a scooter or something similar. The protective walls of the car were gone. A man stood in the middle of a main road, conducting traffic around the roadworks. Car engines, trucks and heavy machinery; all loud. A young man working on the site, came over and leaned on me, his arms around me heavy and blackened with grease. I felt uncomfortable.

Later again, I was at a hairdresser's studio. I was going to have my hair done and I was looking at colour swatches, to choose a shade. Instead of swatches of hair, the colours were displayed in an intricate drawing, each aspect of the drawing a different colour. It was a complicated system as, say, part of a leaf, or a rabbit, might be a different shade of gold, with no label or information to clarify the shade. I was supposed to find a preferred shade among the hundreds, and name it.

past, glass, man and walking on knees

I was in the neighbourhood where I grew up, across the road from my home, walking through the yards of our neighbours. I was the age I am now and I wondered if anyone would recognise me if they saw me. Apart from a secretive kiss in the shadows, against the wall of the house across the road, I cannot recall what I was doing; I am only aware of revisiting my past.
Next, I was in the bathroom of the family home. It was very changed and now seemed to be open to the public. I put my hand up to a broken window and tried to pull out the sharp shards so that no-one would lacerate themselves upon visiting. I extracted shard after shard, but somehow ended up with dozens of tiny splinters of glass in my hand. I then turned my attention to removing the glass splinters, red blood covering my hand and dripping onto the floor. Someone came in to use the bathroom. I asked them to wait while I cleaned it up a little. I washed my hands and scrubbed the sink and the floor where a puddle of blood had pooled.
Next, I was to meet a colleague who was visiting from overseas. He was a tall, rotund man, around my age. We were to go to lunch as part of business proceedings. I stepped into a toilet cubicle for a moment and he followed me in, assuming intimacy. I asked him to leave, which he did. Outside, my sister appeared and I told her about the man, saying that I thought I should cancel the meeting because of his actions and expectations. She was certain that, indeed, I should not proceed any further with him. I went to find him, but I could not see him. I travelled up and down escalators, climbed endless staircases and crossed vast expanses of empty space.
Next, I was walking on my knees through a crowd. I saw a lovely Chow Chow dog adorned with black jewellery and feathers, walking alongside a circus performer. I fell behind the person I was walking with, as she was standing properly upright, walking normally. I was struggling, each step awkward and labouring. I continued on and eventually sat to rest awhile. A young woman approached and I told her that I thought she had a beautiful face. She said she knew, and, in response to my surprise at her candidness, she said she felt that it was important to be honest and not falsely modest. There were other aspects about her person that she would improve upon, but she was perfectly happy with her face. She was at ease with herself.

black sea

B and I were wading in a tranquil sea in the dead of night. There was no moon and it was so dark we could barely see the water let alone what lay beneath. Though the water felt silky and nothing stirred, we grew fearful and decided to climb onto a large pile of sticks for a reprieve. We hauled ourselves up and, as we did, we realised that it was actually was a huge stack of oyster racks, piled one on top of the other. Standing on it, it gave way, the entire structure tipping sideways, plummeting into the water. We jumped out as far from it as we could, diving under the water and swimming as fast as possible away from the looming structure, afraid of being pinned beneath it. I knew that should one of us be trapped, it would mean almost certain death. It was far to dark to find one another under the water. Fortunately, we both out-swam the crashing racks; they collapsed into the water, smashing the sea, disturbing the stillness of the night. We resumed wading and, along the way, B told me that she had an old black dog called China.
Suddenly, I was back on shore, working in a dark office. I was trying to finish some work so that we could go out and join a group of others who were having a fire down by the river. It grew late and I had not finished. B went without me, hoping I would join her. I continued working until, finally, hours later, I realised that I needed to go. I changed into warm clothing and went to find her, wishing that I had not worked for so long. I didn't find her by the river. I went back to the sea where we had waded earlier, but much had changed. There was construction everywhere. Buildings being built, roads, trucks and ships, all in action although it was, by now, quite late at night. I waded into the sea once again and, on the way out, saved a scruffy ginger dog - a terrier - from drowning. I picked him up and carried him, looking for B. Finally I found her sitting in what appeared to be a kind of bus shelter, floating on the shallow water, far out from the shore. She seemed to be dazed. Around her sat a few old people; no one seemed to be very aware of their surroundings. I urged her to come with me, telling her it was time to leave this place. She didn't stir. I put the ginger dog in my basket, and grabbed B's hands, pulling her off the seat. 'Come on,' I said. 'Come on.' I asked her where China was, her old black dog, but we couldn't see him. We waded together, back through the water, calling out for China.

audience

I went to the theatre. The square stage was set low in the centre of the space, with four banks of raked seating flanking each side, rising high above the stage so that the audience could look down at the actors. My friend and I arrived late; the show had already begun. Three sides of the seating were reasonably full, with the fourth side empty. We crept along the space between the front row and the railing of the empty side, aiming to sit over in one of the more crowded banks. The railing, part of the wall that enclosed the bank of seats, and the entire wall below gave way, tipping over, falling like a tree toward the performers below. I was hanging onto the railing, falling with it, so I gathered all my strength and heaved the wall - as though it were a giant piece of cardboard in the wind - to fly over the actors and land beyond them on the far side of the stage. Danger was averted and the show went on. I climbed back up and found a seat on the opposite side of the stage to where my friend was now sitting. In fact, I discovered that I was sitting alone in the light box and, from there, I had a particularly good view of the audience. I watched my friend, and her behaviour - she heckled and laughed at the actors, stealing focus - made me pleased that I was not sitting with her after all. Rather than watching the show, I continued to watch the audience. I could see a person, renowned for brief love affairs, sitting with a very young woman. I hoped that this was not the latest fling as she was far too young. I then saw a dear friend of mine and caught her eye. She joined me in the light box and we cooked a meal together, separating fine slices of meat and laying them in a pan.

antique store

We were in a vast antique store, wandering around, just before closing time. The woman who owned the store seemed keen to lock up and leave, but B had just spotted an elegant chest of drawers that she quite liked. In fact, she seemed so taken with the small cabinet that I wanted to buy it for her. I went to fetch the woman to ask her the price. She seemed a little put out. When we returned to the spot where the drawers had been, I could no longer recognise which of the furniture items it was. I called to B and she pointed out a set of drawers that, to my surprise, looked little like the drawers she had liked earlier. The woman told me the price and I followed her to the counter to pay, the drawers, now quite small, in tow. By the time I reached the counter, the drawers had transformed into a big dream catcher made from black horse hair. I looked at it, wondering why we were buying a dream catcher, but placed it on the counter and rummaged through my bag to find my purse. I couldn't find it and, again, the woman seemed to be losing patience. I said to her, jokingly, that I didn't like her either, that from the moment I saw her, I thought her to be disgusting. She looked at me and laughed and, instantly, we liked one another after all. During this time, although she wanted to shut the doors and close for the day, people kept wandering in, and I knew that the sooner B and I were gone, the sooner the woman could go home. I went to find B to see if she had my purse. I found her outside the store, leaning up against a wall, talked to a woman who we both know. Without saying hello to the woman, I interrupted them and asked for my purse, urgent to pay for the goods so that the woman could lock up and leave. I was aware that I was being a little rude. On the way back inside, walking up the stairs, I bumped into a young woman. She turned around and it was my dear friend A. We were so surprised to see one another, in an antique store in the middle of nowhere.