your first task: think of all the songs that you know that have the word "dream" in them. rest assured: you will gather in your mind the most exciting array of tasteless music!
your second task: follow me again. i dreamt something wonderful tonight. imagine an old wooden barn, on a field in america. it's old and big and has this sloping roof and it stands there, in silent solitude. now - trick of your imagination - try to mentally expand its size in your head. think of the size of an airplane hangar. yes? good. now, re-situate the expanded barn in a town like... like, maybe... something medieval... edinburgh? yes. try edinburgh. okay.
now you have a huge barn, surrounded by grey steep houses, maybe a cottage here and there (?) and there you are. the tapestry of my dream. green hills, rain, some trees somewhere. almost dark outside. i/you walk along the street, we see the barn and we feel intimidated by its size. there is something wrong with this huge barn, here on this street in edinburgh. we knock on the door. a beautiful lady answers, she has curly hair and has obviously been cooking something as she's wiping her hands on her old-fashioned apron. i enter, you are right behind me. what we want is unclear but we do NOT feel well inside the barn. it turns out, too, that the barn really isn't a barn once you enter it. part of the inside is a house and the other part, which opens into the wide open space under the barn's roof is... a ship. yes. polished wood everywhere, copper railings, wooden floors. and above the ship, hanging from the barn's ceiling, there are a large number of life boats, in all sizes, colours and shapes.
i wish to think that this image relates to geoffrey chaucer's "the miller's tale" in which an old and ugly carpenter is tricked by his wife and her young lover. the two of them want to spend the night together and "convince the carpenter that a flood of Biblical proportions is imminent. Their safety depends, on waiting overnight in separate tubs suspended from the (house's) rafters, and to cut their tubs from the roof when the water has risen. This comic prank allows Nicholas and Alison the opportunity to sneak down, after the landlord falls asleep, and make love." (Wikipedia).
back to the dream: when entering the ship's deck i notice that the lady of the house has disappeared, you, my company are also gone. instead, a number of kids are now showing me around the house. all of them seem perfect. their eyes are brilliant, every curl on their head round as a shining sun. there is something steely about them, something inhuman. their dad is standing on a landing further down in this strange architectural ship-terrace and he, too, seems to be made from material of a different kind. i notice that they treat each other with exceeding violence. not only psychologically speaking, i observe the children slapping and kicking their parents or their siblings. in one case, they throw a baby against a wall. they don't approach me yet, but eye me with curiosity and malice.
i understand that their form of violence is something they neither feel nor dislike, it is an alternative way of living for them. the baby didn't cry when it hit the wall - it really didn't mind. for this family, violence means nothing. it is only the opposite of love. as they don't feel love or pain and they don't fear a kiss or a slash, they are as free as birds. in my dream, i was scared as shit and i thought i would surely die soon. i thought about this apparent lack of the boundaries of what's right. who makes the rules, i thought, when the values mean nil. and who follows them if that doesn't make sense?
the dream ended there, my alarm clock rang. of course, it's not me who made up these thoughts but
juli zeh. and probably someone who once told me his only fear were
child soldiers in africa, as their actions tend to be unpredictable due to the lifelong and extraordinarily violent abuse they have to suffer. and a distinct lack of love.
