Dreams

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Some indigenous tribes of North America believe that dreams are the spiritual journeys of the soul. I think this is mostly bullshit, but every now and again I have one of those wonderful, vivid, cinematic dreams that are so lucid and recollectable that they must be precisely that. Last night I went on a very strange and beautiful journey and, unlike most dreams, when I awoke I had total recall. Even now, at 3pm, the details are crystal clear.
It started back in the time when I flew fighter jets in the Gulf war (the first one, that is). Except that I was flying over the plains of England, tracking a stray nuclear missile that had somehow escaped from a military facility and was heading on a deathly trajectory toward some nondescript British town. My expertise in such matters allowed me to disarm the warhead remotely from the console in my cockpit, and also to stall the propulsion system -which meant that it spluttered to a halt in mid-flight and fell harmlessly to the ground below. I quickly landed and jumped out to check if it had landed on anyone, but as I arrived at the scene an articulated lorry carrying tons of corrosive liquid swerved to avoid the now-latent weapon (which looked much bigger on the ground than it did in the air) and overturned as the wheels locked. Just like in Terminator II, it skidded on it’s side for a few metres before wrapping itself around a stone pillar that stood near the foyer of the train station, and spewed the load out of the twisted and gashed metal of the massive container. Being a quick-witted and agile fighter pilot, I immediately sensed the danger that this posed and I made my escape, clambering over turnstiles, parked cars and, bizarrely, the headless torso of my Geography teacher Mr Rudkin (I recognised his jacket, in case you were wondering. I was quite glad to see him dead as the bastard had shot me in another of my dreams years ago, firing a bullet straight through my chest at point blank range. In that dream, I collapsed to the ground and died from a wound that shed no blood). As the horrible corrosive liquid gushed out of the station concourse and onto the busy street, I ran and ran, as fast as I could possibly go. I didn’t stop running until I reached Hong Kong which I figured should be far enough away from the spillage for me to be quite safe. I decided to pay a visit to my mother, who works in the bar of a very plush and opulent five-star hotel in Kowloon. I sat at one of the spotless tables and sipped a cocktail as I waited for her to finish her shift and soon fell into a conversation with the famous British comedian Ronnie Corbett who was dressed in a 3-piece pin-striped suit and was smoking a cigar that was as thick as my arm. As we talked, I noticed that I addressed him as Mr Corbett (which is a little strange as I do not have any particular reverence for the man) and I soon discovered he was neither amusing nor funny. Later on, I remarked upon this to my mother as we walked out of the bar, but she was not the least bit interested as she was feeling a little nauseous and sickly. After a moment she abruptly took off on her heels to find a toilet in which to vomit. I spent many hours chasing my mother around the luxurious hotel with a mop and bucket, stopping to clean patches of carpet where she had thrown-up, or politely enquiring of the porter staff where I could find a toilet for her. At one point, the hotel was the business section of a large airliner, high above the pacific, with Corbett sitting at the back, puffing on his cigar (despite it being a non-smoking flight) and chatting with the dead actor and musical ‘variety’ star, Howard Keel (he played Miss Ellie’s husband in ‘Dallas’, I think). Back in the grounds of the hotel, I realised that I had lost my mother. Up to this point, I had been following the droplets of sick on the ground but of late they seemed to had dried-up and I had lost the trail. From the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a Buddhist monk and took him to be my mother in some kind of disguise. I ran after her, and after a few minutes she stopped dead and struck a giant gong that hung from a sycamore tree. She looked directly at me and I realised that it wasn’t my mother after all, but a toothless old man who was less than five feet tall. As if it wasn’t bad enough dreaming about one’s mother (especially if you subscribe to Freudian psychology), I was mildly alarmed to catch sight of my father who appeared to be leading this Buddhist parade that my pseudo-mother was taking part in. He was dressed in tights, a poncho and a strange triangular hat that made him look like an Inca, or an Aztec perhaps. He beckoned me to join him but I ignored him because I had to look for my mother to make sure she was ok, and anyway, I haven’t seen my father in ten years so I had no particular inclination to meet up with him in my dreaming life either. Eventually, I found my mother back in the bar talking to Corbett, who said he hated Hong Kong (except he called it ‘King Kong’). When I asked her if she was feeling better, she looked at me like I was crazy and said she had never been ill in her whole life.

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