I am in an unfamiliar house in an unfamiliar neighbourhood. It is night there are lights on everywhere. I am uncomfortable being there with these strangers and I want to go home. I feel as if self-imposed prison because if I leave I may get lost.
There’s a bed in a hideous and untidy room. The bedspread is bile green floral with seventies style pillowcases. The room is a perfect example of bad taste and mental disorder. The whole place is chaotic without a point of focus or harmony. As I lay on the bed two strange creatures hover over me and climb around me. They look like Halloween characters. They are quite laughable except that they are very menacing and seem intent on harassing me.
I find myself praying the blood of Christ over them and ordering them to leave in the name of Jesus. I am surprised by my automatic behaviour and my dependence on a being outside myself to command lesser creatures to leave. I sense that I am being lazy and because these creatures are completely new to me and rather persistent, the Jesus route is simply the easiest. In the truest sense I simply want to be alone to sleep in peace.
Unable to take this nasty little house full of noisy strangers any longer, I gather my things to leave then discover that my shoes are missing. The feeling of mortification and worst case scenario sends alarm bells ringing and gets my heart pounding. At first, I think that they have been misplaced or put away, but once everyone else starts searching for them I begin to get a sinking feeling that a woman has stolen them. The home owner, a pleasant enough fellow suggests that I take the shoes that have been left by the thief. My heart stops and I am filled with absolute horror at the suggestion, for there in place of my beloved trusty leather Jesus sandals, are some cream plastic mules. To me, they are hideous and I would rather go barefoot. This is then what I must do as I leave the house.
My female guide is being very helpful, in fact everyone is being very accommodating and helpful, it is I who is being ‘fussy’ and uncompromisingly unreasonable. Quite dramatic in truth. I follow her gingerly making my way over the unevenly cobbled dirty pavement in search of the thief. I see my car and tell her that it’s filled with groceries. She beckons that we will return for the groceries, now we are in pursuit of the return of my shoes. I feel the task is a hopeless one. I sulkily assess my guide. She has very frizzy brown hair and is wearing tight denim shorts. Her look is not right for a middle-aged woman with chubby white legs. My sense of time and space quickly become distorted and I begin to feel tired and panicky. I am lagging behind. The woman has led me down a grubby, dark alley in which lurk some very unsavoury looking characters. They hide in the shadows grimacing menacingly as if right out of the pages of a comic book. Then in sudden contrast to the absolute decay and filth of the alley, hobbles a very young, very small deer. She is beautiful, delicate and really, like myself, doesn’t belong there. She is limping due to an old injury to her right hind leg. I am afraid for her because I see how vulnerable she is and sense that these awful idiotic people will kick her about like a football.
The deer turns and looks at me sending me a message and then hobbles bravely on. My heart breaks as I realise that she is lost and doomed to her fate but that she is telling me that I mustn’t walk any further down the alley. I don’t belong in this place at all.
Dreamt: 20th April 2011
Emporium Of Dreams 