'Darcy and O'Mara' is a novel by Arthur Cronin.
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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Ivan's Newspaper


The coal shed is nearly empty. I noticed some faint drawings on the wall where the pile of coal had been. These drawings seem to be telling the story of an alien landing. It could be the landing of the aliens my grandfather saw one summer night when he was trying to swat away the flies swarming around his head. He became so engrossed in the task that he didn't notice he was walking. By the time the flies had finally got the message, he was miles away from home. He wouldn't have had the courage to go so close to the aliens if he'd seen where he was going. They weren't concerned by his approach. They wouldn't have felt much of a threat from a man who struggled to deal with flies. They asked him to take them to his leader, so he took them to a man known as Biscuit, who lived in a caravan. Three weeks later, the aliens had converted the caravan into a three-storey mansion. My grandfather was sorry he didn't pretend to be the leader, but they might not have believed that after seeing his struggles with the flies.


My cousin Ronan and his friend Shane often saw a man sitting on a stone pillar near Shane's house. There was a beautiful view of the fields from that pillar, but the man was always engrossed in a newspaper, and they noticed that he was always reading the same paper.


One day they offered him a copy of their own newspaper, which they printed on a photocopier. Alien landings often featured in this. The man said, "Thanks for the offer, but I'd rather read this. This is one of Ivan's papers."


"Who's Ivan?" Ronan said.


"Now there's a question that has many answers. Ivan is a man who's well-known for his idiosyncratic views on life. The flow of time enthrals him, filling his senses with a never-ending supply of playthings. Some are taken on board. Some are cast aside to go over the waterfall into oblivion. It's important to stand firm and not be taken over the waterfall. The need to collect new playthings is a good reason to avoid fading away. These diversions for the senses are designed by the family who live in the castle at the source of the stream, or so Ivan claims. He's been inside the castle. He won't say how he managed it, but he left the stream and stood on the bank. This higher ground provided him with a higher vantage point on life. His understanding was deepened. He saw more than he could ever glean while his senses were immersed in an autumn sunset or a star-filled night.


"He followed the stream until he came to the source. The water emerged from underneath a castle. A man was playing croquet on the lawn. He walked over to Ivan and introduced himself as Flaherty. He said, 'I assume you're here about the wine,' and before Ivan had a chance to say anything, Flaherty was leading him into the castle's kitchen to sample the wine.


"In the kitchen, Flaherty's daughter was talking to the cook. The butler poured a glass of wine for Ivan and he tasted it. When Flaherty asked him to guess what it was made of, his daughter interrupted her chat with the cook and said, 'Don't even think of trying to guess what it's made of.' Flaherty considered the matter and decided that his daughter was probably right. He said, 'Come with me and I'll show you something to make you forget all about the wine.'


"He took Ivan to a long corridor to see a statue of a man holding a newspaper as if he was just about to throw it. As they were looking at that, another man walked towards them down the corridor. He was wearing a grey shirt and black jeans. His skin was as white as snow. He had no hair.


"As he got closer, Ivan realised that he didn't have skin at all. Whatever he had, it was moving. It reminded Ivan of people who cover their head in bees for a record attempt or just to pass the time. These white things were smaller than bees and they looked like a permanent fixture on the man's head, if he actually was a man at all. He had the eyes of a man, but he didn't have any ears. His mouth only became visible when he spoke. His name was Ray. Flaherty introduced him to Ivan and they shook hands. Then Ray said to Flaherty, 'Make sure you tell the organist to start playing at midday,' and Flaherty said 'Yes, sir'. Ray said goodbye to Ivan. He turned around and walked back down the corridor. After he had gone, Flaherty said to Ivan, 'He thinks he's the boss around here, and you'll get a lot more peace if you let him think that, but he's not really. Although in fairness, he's come a long way since he started work delivering newspapers.' Ivan noticed that framed newspaper pages were hanging on the walls of the corridor. One headline was about a family of walls taking over a house.


"Flaherty led Ivan back to the castle's door. Before Ivan left, Flaherty shook his hand and said, 'And remember, forget about the wine.' Ivan went back to the stream and returned to the everyday flow of time. He can sit for hours in a cold barren wasteland and be perfectly content, now that he's seen the other side. He doesn't do this on a regular basis, only from time to time. One thing he does do on a regular basis is read newspapers. I've noticed that all of the newspapers he reads feature articles about families of walls. I came across this paper with an article about a family of walls and I've read every word in the entire paper hundreds of times. I get the feeling that somewhere amongst these pages is a way out of the stream, a boat to the water's edge and a chance to find the castle."


Ronan and Shane let the man on the pillar return to his re-reading of the paper. When they were walking down the road on the following day the man was gone, but the newspaper was on top of the pillar.


"Do you think he's found his way out of the stream?" Ronan said.


"Possibly. Maybe he left the newspaper behind for us to find our way out."


"What if we get out and we can't get back in again?"


"Getting in is surely easier than getting out. You can see where you're going when you're going back in. There's no harm in reading the paper anyway."


They started reading Ivan's newspaper and they came across an ad that was circled in red ink. The ad was for the sale of a second-hand robot that had its wedding head switched on. Shane collected and restored antique robots, so there was little chance of him resisting the temptation to investigate further.
The address in the ad led them to a farmhouse on a narrow winding road. They met the farmer in the yard. When they asked him about the robot he said, "Ye're too late. I sold it to a man this morning."


"What did he look like?" Ronan said.


"He was tall. Actually, he was small. Very small. Or very tall. He had a moustache. A beard. In his hand. He had no hair."


"Did he have any ears?"


"I don't know because his thick curly hair covered nearly everything. Now that I think about it, I don't really know what he looked like. That's strange because normally I do know things. Some things. Or nothing. One thing. I know one thing and it's this: he told me about the clouds with bulging eyeballs and they laugh at you and drop things on your head, unwittingly enthralling you with their golden edges in the evening sun. You can go inside to Fay who's trying out her new recipe for pea soup. Peace pervades the atmosphere. Even if you hate the soup you can still feel as if you've been blessed by an authority that's higher than the clouds, and you can go outside and say this to the clouds, but they'll be gone by then."


As Shane and Ronan walked away they spoke about the ghost-hunter they once interviewed for their paper. There were times when he'd stick a pin into his hand to make sure he wasn't dreaming, because sometimes he was dreaming. Ronan and Shane had developed a similar method. Shane would punch Ronan on the arm and Ronan would kick Shane's leg. They tried this as they walked down the road and they agreed they weren't dreaming.


They came across a garden where a woman was trying to coax a man down from a tree. They asked her why he was so reluctant to come down. She said that this morning there was a small red brick wall in her garden and she was sure there had been a pile of bricks there the last time she had looked. She was going to call the police, but there was a good chance they'd arrest her, so she called Lenny instead. He came around, and while he was looking at the wall, a cat appeared behind him. This terrified him, and he climbed up into the tree. He wouldn't come back down.


She told Lenny that the cat had fallen asleep in the shade at the other side of the wall, but this only made him cling even tighter to the branch. She whispered to Ronan and Shane, "I think I'll have to wait for the clouds with the bulging eyes to arrive and frighten him down." The whispering did nothing to ease Lenny's nerves.


Ronan and Shane walked on down the road. There was a man standing in front of the next house. He was reading a newspaper. The headline on the front page was 'More Walls'. The front room of the house behind him was on fire, but he took no notice of this as he read the paper.


Shane asked him if he'd ever heard of Ivan, and the man said, "I am Ivan."


"We've heard a lot about you," Ronan said. "Actually, we haven't heard all that much, but what we have heard is much more interesting than the detailed histories of other people's lives we have to endure. Is it true that you left the stream of time?"


"To put it bluntly, no. It's just a lie I had to tell. I once joined a suburban government. Erasing personal histories was an essential part of being a member. You'd be assigned a role within the government and you'd be expected to lie about your past so you'd fit into the role. I had to make up a story to prove I was qualified to be the Minister of Defence. I used to tell people about the time I conducted a military campaign from the roof of my house. This led to other lies, a long stream of them, culminating in the lie about the castle, a lie that was analogous to the castle in my lie, the source of all the other lies. None of it is real, but in one sense it's all true because within the lie nothing is real when you're immersed in the stream. If you believe the lie, none of this is real, and neither is the lie. The lie is a lie."


"It's not necessarily true either," Ronan said.


"But what is truth?"


"I don't know."


"The castle is the source of truth."


"I thought you lied about that."


"Did I?"


"I don't know. Did you?"


"I don't know. That's why I asked you."


"You said you lied about it."


"Did I?"


"Definitely."


"How do I know you're not lying about that?"


Shane said, "If I were you I wouldn't wait around to see if the fire in your house was real."


"My living room is on fire to keep me warm," Ivan said. "It's been burning down for years. The wallpaper has long gone, and I wasn't sorry to see it go. People have said to me that when the walls have burnt down I'll be colder than ever. As soon as the walls have gone I'll start building them again. I'll start with the wallpaper, which I've already acquired. When that's in place I'll begin pasting the walls to it.


"The fire started when the dog tried to light his pipe. Some dogs start a fire every time they try to light a pipe, so you're better off lighting the pipe for them, even though you might be trying to discourage the habit. Every time I light my dog's pipe I use the occasion to deliver an anti-smoking lecture he wouldn't normally stay around to listen to. When I'm lighting his pipe he stays there for the entire course of the lecture, although he still doesn't listen to a word I say. When he started the fire in my living room I wasn't there to light his pipe. I was in a pub. There are times when you'll go into a pub and something about the bar man's demeanour will make you ask him if everything is okay. Sometimes he'll ask you what 'everything' is and his tone will suggest that everything is not okay. It's best to change the subject to something other than everything. I've learnt this from experience. While the dog was starting the fire, I was listening to a bar man tell me about being at the wedding of the love of his life. She was marrying another man. No one said a word throughout the whole wedding, but somehow words weren't needed. The silence didn't hinder the proceedings. He got the impression that it would have been rude to say anything. When he was given the opportunity to raise his objections to the marriage and express his love for the bride, he said nothing.


"I spent hours listening to him talk about her, and we ended up standing outside her house in the middle of a freezing night. There was a fire in one of the front rooms. I didn't think it was anything to worry about, but he was afraid that he'd get blamed for it. If he put the fire out they'd say he started it deliberately just so he could pretend to be a hero and impress the woman he loved. What are the chances of him arriving there in the middle of the night just as the room was on fire? Quite good if he goes there every night, but he didn't want to tell them that. He could ignore the fire and walk away, but if someone saw him leaving the scene he'd definitely get blamed for it.


"As he was explaining his dilemma to me, an old woman opened an upstairs window and said, 'I'm trying to get some sleep up here.' The bar man realised he had got the wrong house. The love of his life was next door with her new husband. He asked the old woman if she wanted us to put the fire out. She said, 'Put the fire out? In this weather? It would freeze outside. That's why I let it stay in the house instead of sleeping in its kennel. It wouldn't get much protection from the cold out there, even if it hadn't burnt the roof off its kennel.' The bar man told her that we'd be going next door, and she told us to make sure to wake them up because they were always waking her up with their arguments, shouting insults at each other, and throwing things too. The bar man's smile was as bright as the fire after he heard this. Everything was okay again. I went home to find that the dog had started this fire in the living room. I had to pretend to be angry with him. In truth, I was glad of the warmth. I lit his pipe, but I kept the lecture short."


Shane punched Ronan on the arm and Ronan kicked Shane's leg.


They walked on. As they were approaching Shane's house they met a man leading a donkey that pulled a cart. This man had red curly hair and a beard. The cart was full of bottles of red wine. He asked Ronan and Shane if they'd like to buy some of his wine. They saw the ominous clouds appearing on the horizon, and they thought that wine would be just the thing to keep the clouds' menace out of their minds. The bought a bottle each.


When they got to Shane's house they kicked and punched each other one last time before going their separate ways. Ronan went to meet his girlfriend, Audrey. When she saw the bottle of wine she said, "I knew you'd remember our anniversary. Everyone else said you'd forget, because you forgot my birthday. Remember that?"


"No."


"But I knew you wouldn't forget our anniversary."


They drank the wine and Ronan listened carefully to her stories to convince himself that he was immersed in reality. She spoke about a cat she saw who looked as if he wanted to recite a poem he'd composed to express his love for the moon, so things couldn't have been any more normal than that.


Shane chose to escape reality by organising robot weddings.


The moose's head over the fireplace seems perfectly content with the reality of being a moose's head over the fireplace. All he needs is Bach and Beethoven to embellish the flow of time. The wife's aunt has formed more elaborate methods for decorating reality. She's currently reading a physics book to a plastic butterfly.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Apple Blossom


The cold weather has gone for now. One of its benefits was that it makes average winter weather feel more like summer. The garden gnomes are wearing their summer hats, and they made a small tennis court on the lawn, but I think they're just trying to catch another garden gnome in the net. I hope they do catch him because he's been digging holes in the garden at night. I don't know what he's trying to trap.


My cousin Isobel was shocked to learn that she had been chosen to be the Apple Blossom, the official figurehead of an annual festival to celebrate apples. On the previous year, the woman chosen to fill this role used to spend her spare time shaking. If she kept shaking for long enough she'd start to believe that she was the manager of an international soccer team. It was a different country each time, and this is what stopped her from becoming bored with the experience. Some of the countries didn't actually exist. For hours or even days after she stopped shaking she'd feel the thrill of qualifying for the World Cup with a country where people lived in clocks. For most of the Apple Festival she kept talking about managing Ecuador's national team.


Isobel was chosen as Apple Blossom because the Apple Committee had been secretly observing young women (something they only do for professional reasons) and she hadn't shaken once. In fact, she sat still for long periods of time as she observed Mars through her telescope. They had narrowed their search down to two candidates, but the other one started shaking after she saw some men with binoculars and cameras hiding in the tree outside her bedroom window.


Isobel didn't want the role. She was too busy observing Mars at night, and writing about her observations by day (she was convinced that something funny was going on up there on Mars). She decided to hide before she was presented with the official cudgel for trashing anyone found guilty of disparaging an apple, unless that apple had been found guilty of something that merited its denigration. If they couldn't find her, members of the Apple Committee would give the cudgel to someone else, someone who could afford to waste time learning the song they'd sing to encourage academics to write more books about apples.


She decided to spend the weekend at her grandmother's house. She'd get a chance to observe Mars and she'd help her grandmother catch the mouse who had the brain of a monkey. Isobel had seen this creature once before. It looked like a normal mouse, but it had something taped to the top of its head. Isobel's grandmother believed that this thing was a monkey's brain and that the mouse was using it, just like the engine on the roof of her neighbour's car made the car go faster and catch fire. Isobel thought the brain was made out of plastic and that it was providing the mouse with no additional cognitive benefits, but one thing she couldn't deny was that this mouse was much smarter than his comrades. He was extremely good at not getting caught, despite being hindered by a strange plastic brain-like object taped to the top of his head. This led Isobel to believe that he had a good reason for wearing it, perhaps to confuse Lilly, the cat, who seemed very wary of the mouse. She'd pretend to be asleep rather than try to catch her foe. Isobel's grandmother had been trying to catch him for years. It was a great hobby. She got a lot of exercise and it kept her mind active. Sometimes she built elaborate traps and sometimes she used devious ruses involving actors and scripts that were over fifty pages long.


When Isobel went to the house to avoid the Apple Committee, her grandmother was trying to catch the mouse with a miniature village created with doll's houses. One of her sisters made the doll's houses (this was her hobby). Isobel's grandmother believed that the strangeness of the village would weaken the mouse's mental fortitude. Isobel helped by wearing a long white dress and playing a lute. She completely forgot about her role as Apple Blossom, but late in the afternoon she looked out the window and she saw members of the Apple Committee walking up the garden path. One of them was holding the cudgel. As soon as that was presented to her she'd be stuck with the role. They saw her through the window, so she couldn't get her grandmother to pretend that she wasn't there. She decided to leave through the back door and run away.


When they saw her through the window they must have recognised the expression of an unwilling Apple Blossom, a potential runner. One of them went around the side of the house. She heard him say, "She's getting away."


They chased her through the fields. The long dress was slowing her down, and the lute wasn't exactly helping either. When she came to a pond she noticed that there was only one boat tied to a small pier. She climbed into this and she rowed to the centre of the pond, where the Apple Committee couldn't reach her. But they paid some kids to borrow a raft, and two of them used pieces of timber as paddles to make their way towards her.


They might have caught her if one of them hadn't remembered that he was afraid of water when it came in large quantities. He started shaking, and so did the raft. The two committee members fell into the water. Isobel felt that she had a duty to rescue them. She rowed to where they were splashing about in the water and she helped them into the boat. The cudgel was still floating in the water. They insisted that she retrieve this, but she rowed back to the pier. On the way she tried to start a conversation with the man who had started shaking. She said, "What international soccer team are you managing these days?" He didn't respond.


After they had returned to dry land, the head of the committee said, "We'll get the cudgel. If necessary we'll use the backup cudgel, and we'll track you down eventually. There's no getting out of it."


"Ye only have another two days to track me down. I know of some very comfortable holes I could hide in for two days and ye'd never find me."


They looked concerned, and she knew she'd won.


"Ye'll have to get someone else," she said. "Ye're focussing too much on finding someone who doesn't shake. Ye should be looking for someone who actually wants the role. Not everyone is going to be distracted by her duties to a South American soccer team. What ye need is someone who'll devote all of her attentions to the role."


"I suppose we should go and get our binoculars and our cameras," the head of the committee said.


"Ye don't need to spy on anyone," Isobel said. "Talk to women." They seemed very dubious about this idea, but she persisted. "Ask them questions like 'Do you want to be the Apple Blossom?', or 'Do you have a job in international sport that could impair your ability to satisfactorily perform your duties as Apple Blossom?'."


They agreed to try her approach, after she had promised to help them. They began the interviews that evening. She asked most of the questions, and it only took them a few hours to find the ideal candidate. Janet was chosen to fill the role, and she went on to be one of the best Apple Blossoms ever. Her shaking was barely noticeable, but her enthusiasm for apples was there for all to see. Her skill with the cudgel could make the crowd gasp in astonishment.


The moose's head over the fireplace has stopped wearing his antler warmers. He didn't really need them during the cold weather, but they looked good. They were made by one of our neighbours, Rose. She's used to making strange items of clothing. She spends a lot of time making pyjamas for salmon. She still hasn't managed to convince salmon to wear them. She puts them on salmon mannequins and she displays them on the river bank, but the fish have shown little interest so far.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

The Funereal King


It snowed for most of the day on Sunday. Snowmen were appearing all over the place. The wife's aunt was convinced that they were going to form an army and take over houses, forcing people to stay outside with lumps of coal for eyes. That's why she sang in the rain when it arrived to thwart their plan.


My cousin Gary considers himself to be lucky. The one time he fell off a cliff, he landed in the back of a truck full of rotten pears. His attitude to life changed after this near-miss. He was determined to live each day to the fullest, and to try new things.


He soon realised that he couldn't try everything. His friends urged him to take up hobbies such as wrestling or bird-watching or bird-wrestling. One of his friends, Fergus, had a hobby that amounted to hiding lamb chops in snowmen while an accomplice danced to distract a dog. None of these activities appealed to Gary.


He was intrigued when he heard about Fergus's great-uncle Slate, who used to spend most of his time making musical instruments out of copper pipes, wool and paper. Some of the instruments were electric, but even Slate himself was afraid of touching them. Gary went to see him to find out more. Slate told him about the gypsies who could make beautiful music come out of the pipes. They could make lots of things come out. One of them could blow into an instrument and hundreds of spiders would emerge. These spiders would rise into the sky and disperse like smoke. The gypsies bought some of his instruments and they travelled all around Europe, playing concerts in castles, huts, holes, public houses, forests and caravans, anywhere they could find an audience who wouldn't run away screaming at a stream of spiders. The gypsies sent regular letters to Slate.


Gary was inspired to start making his own instruments. He used parts of old washing machines, bits of furniture that had been smashed to pieces (by Gary), brass taps, spoons and other bits of junk he found. He focussed entirely on the look of his instruments, rather than the sound. He became engrossed in this work. Entire evenings would vanish as he assembled the bits of junk in the shed. He realised that this was far from the idea he had when he set out to live life to the fullest, but he couldn't think of anything else he'd be happier doing.


He was delighted with his creations. He showed them off to anyone willing to look at them, and most people were impressed. A woman called Martha believed he was an artist, and a good one at that. She bought one of his instruments, and she invited him to a party at which the instrument would be played by The Funereal King.


The Funereal King used to be in a band called 'The Funereal Kings'. He was the lead singer and he played the violin. There were seventeen people in the band, but the others left one by one over a six-month period. Some left because they couldn't get on with someone else in the band, and then the person they couldn't get on with would leave because they'd be bored without anyone to fight with. One woman left to sell ham sandwiches made from an ancient recipe.


The Funereal King looked behind him one day and he realised that no one was there. He was sure that there had been people there before. He wondered where they'd all gone to. He waited around, but they didn't come back. He couldn't remember his name, so he became known as The Funereal King and he tried to keep the band going, but the music seemed empty without the sound of trumpets, lutes and people fighting over sandwiches. He learnt other instruments and he started fighting with himself, but he couldn't do everything all at once. To fit as much as possible into a performance, he joined some instruments together and he wrote songs full of insults against himself. It was always worth going to his gigs to see him attempting to play one of his bizarre instruments. Sometimes it looked as if he might kill himself playing an instrument, and the self-hatred in the songs suggested that this was his intention.


He seemed like the perfect person to play the instrument recently purchased by Martha. Gary was afraid that it would sound terrible, and that Martha wouldn't want it anymore. A big crowd gathered around The Funereal King as he got ready to perform at the party. Gary stood near the door so he could make a quick getaway if needed.


The Funereal King's first attempt to play it failed. He blew into the mouth piece, but no sound came out the other end. He took a deep breath and tried again, but he still couldn't get it to produce a sound. He made a third attempt, blowing as hard has he could. His face went red, and Gary was afraid that he'd pass out. This attempt failed as well. After The Funereal King had rested for a few minutes he tried inhaling from the instrument instead of blowing into it. The sound of coughing followed as The Funereal King fell to his knees. Gary was just about to leave, but The Funereal King sprang to his feet. There was a look of joy on his face. He said, "There's a shimmering wonder to everything. Everything is stitched together to create a universal glow. The sunlight on the concrete. The shadow cast by the evenly-cut hedge. The Polish men who cut the hedge. They've finished their dinner now. They're joyfully appreciating the taste of their coffee. Or joylessly. Crushed by the rejection of someone prone to throwing shoes at mirrors in fits of rage. The design in the curtains was conceived in the head of someone thinking of sea urchins, creatures filmed for a nature documentary by a man with a fear of spiders. The sea urchins are caught on camera as they think of picking the divers' pockets while cuttlefish distract the divers with offers to shine their shoes.


"Live in each moment. Explore the many layers of each moment. Dance its dance. You can try re-living it when it's past, holding it up for examination, like a costume in tatters after a fancy dress party, but you can't step inside it again. There may be a need to escape into the past to get away from the present, but very often there are plenty of escape routes in the present. 'Escape' is probably the wrong word. Or else it's the right word but it doesn't present the most promising facade. A re-appraisal of the word is needed, to paint its walls and highlight its finest architectural features. Escape can be a beautiful thing. Like escape from a prison. Obviously it isn't beautiful when a murderer escapes from prison. I'm talking about mental prisons, mindsets that exclude most of reality and make the tiny sliver we see seem more important than it actually is..."


He spent the next hours passing on the truths that had just been revealed to him. When his energy started to fade he inhaled from the instrument again and he was rejuvenated. He kept talking until after midnight, and the guests at the party were entranced.


Martha agreed to let him use the instrument at gigs, and he developed a following who loved to hear his long dissertations after inhaling from the instrument. His former band mates re-joined the band one by one. They never told him they were coming back. They used to sneak in behind him at gigs, and they'd try to stay quiet so he wouldn't notice. The original line-up had been restored by the time he finally turned around. He seemed slightly surprised to see them there, but he didn't ask any questions. He just inhaled and started talking about getting a haircut in New York.


Gary attracted an unwelcome following who wanted to know what he put into the instrument. He insisted that he hadn't put anything into it, that it was all in The Funereal King's mind, but they didn't believe him. They followed him everywhere he went. Some of them waited outside his house all night long. He started to have nightmares about zombies chasing him until he comes to a cliff, but there's no truck full of rotten pears below.


After a few days of being harassed by his followers, his nerves were shattered. He was seriously considering leaving the country for a while. But The Funereal King rescued him by blowing instead of inhaling at one gig. The instrument created a terrible sound. No one wanted to know what was in it after this, and Gary's followers abandoned him. The Funereal King, or The Funereal Kings, kept their following, partly because people were entertained by the fights that took place behind the lead singer as he performed.


The moose's head over the fireplace wasn't concerned about snowmen taking over the house. The roaring fire beneath him would have protected him against the most hostile being made out of snow. The wife's uncle has no fear of an army of snowmen, but he does believe that scarecrows could be a threat if they ever got together.

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

A Dream Day


The cold weather seems determined to last longer than the wet weather that preceded it. I've been doing my best to feed the birds in the garden, but the partridge in the pear tree is giving me malevolent looks.


My cousin Jane and her best friend, Claudia, were walking down a quiet country road one day when a dog ran past them. He had something in his mouth. A few seconds later a group of over twenty people ran by, chasing the dog. One of them told Jane and Claudia that the dog had taken a diamond necklace. Jane and Claudia joined the chase because it looked like fun.


The dog led them through fields and down narrow lanes. More people joined the chase. Claudia was enjoying it, but Jane was becoming increasingly concerned. It reminded her of a dream she had. The dream started with a fancy dress party at a house in the country. Jane went to the party as a tree. The people who had come as kitchen utensils were congregating in a corner of the kitchen. A nurse was giving first-aid to aliens. In the dream it didn't matter if she was a real nurse or if they were real aliens. The gorilla in the drawing room was probably just someone inhabiting a costume because he was holding a cocktail and telling someone about the Napoleonic wars. Napoleon was with the other guests, dancing to records played on an old gramophone. A dog with a gold watch in his mouth ran around the room. He was closely followed by a man dressed as a penguin. Everyone joined the chase because it looked like fun. They followed the dog outside. He led them through the moonlit fields, and their laughter never stopped until they arrived at the ruins of a castle, where they were confronted by a terrifying hound who was surrounded by people who looked even more vicious than he did.


She had seen the hound at the castle in a horror film. In the film, a woman had followed her dog to the ruins, and there she had seen the hound and his intimidating handlers. They took the woman into the dungeon, where they performed a Satanic ceremony. The film wasn't very realistic. Jane had found it funny rather than frightening, but her nightmare augmented the menace and she woke up screaming when she saw the hound in her head.


As she ran after the dog with the necklace she wondered if her dream had been a premonition. She had a sense of something bad ahead. Or was this just a dream? She didn't recognise her surroundings, and she felt an air of unreality. The sound of the leaves rustling in the breeze seemed eerie. A young girl kept rising over the top of a hedge and disappearing beneath it again. The cause of this could have been a trampoline, but Jane had a feeling that it was due to some sinister device that projected children into the air against their will.


Jane stopped running in the middle of a field when a woman asked her what type of sleep she wore. Claudia stopped as well. "What's wrong?" she said.


"I don't know," Jane said. "But something is definitely wrong."


After the dog and the chasing pack disappeared over the top of a hill, Claudia said, "Do you have any idea where we are?"


"No. We're lost. That's one thing I know is wrong."


They walked to the edge of the field. At the other side of the ditch was a narrow road lined with trees. They walked down the road until they came to a woman who was sitting on a suitcase and crying. Jane asked her what was wrong and she said, "Nothing's wrong. I can cry!"


"Right. Congratulations."


"Thanks. For decades I was unable to cry, but thanks to a psychiatrist I've regained the ability. Now I cry as often as possible to make up for lost time. I cry in happiness at being able to cry."


She told them that her suitcase was full of broken vases. They were broken before she put them into the suitcase. She was very keen to emphasise this point. She wouldn't want people thinking that she was careless with vases in her suitcase, but she didn't mind them thinking that she travelled with broken vases, and that she was very careful with the broken pieces.


Claudia said, "We really need to go now. We have to be... somewhere else. Goodbye."


Claudia walked away. Jane said goodbye and followed her. Claudia said, "Something is definitely wrong alright. I have a recurring dream in which a woman ferociously beats a rug that's hanging outside the back door of a house. That woman is my grandmother. She always frightened me, and not just because of the way she beat rugs. She exuded an aura that was strong enough to touch, if you were stupid enough to touch it. My brother used to do impressions of her, despite a fear that part of her aura had left her and had seeped in under the door to see what we were up to. He enjoys experiencing fear, as long as the feeling isn't too intense. He saw her ghost after she died. Or maybe it was just her aura. Either way, it was too much fear for him.


"In my dream I try to give as wide a berth as possible to the woman beating the rug. I go in through the back door. I meet a nice old woman in a kitchen with vases, teacups, saucers and plates on the shelves. She offers me some tea, and when I say I'd like a cup she turns into my grandmother and she starts ferociously beating the things on the shelves with a stick, smashing everything to pieces. I had a feeling that the woman we just met was getting ready to turn into my grandmother."


They walked on quickly.


"So whose dream is it?" Jane said.


"If you've dragged me into one of your dreams I'll be really annoyed."


"If it's my dream you don't need to worry about anything. You're safe and well somewhere else."


"So are you, if it's just a dream. You're in bed, or else you're pretending to listen to your brother talk about his latest fishing trip."


"I don't feel safe and well."


"Neither do I."


Safety seemed a long way away when a huge dog came running around a corner, followed by a group of dishevelled people who looked as if they'd just been dragged through the undergrowth in a forest.


Jane screamed. The dog was baring terrifying teeth that glinted in the sun, but just before he reached Jane and Claudia he dropped some of his teeth. He jumped up on Jane and started licking her face. Claudia noticed that the teeth on the ground were actually diamonds.


The woman who owned the necklace gave them fifty euros each as a reward. They went to a cafe for coffee and cheesecake to convince themselves that they weren't dreaming. Dogs stared at them through the window of the cafe, but there was nothing unusual in that.


The moose's head over the fireplace enjoyed our New Year's Eve fancy dress party. Two people came as Sylvester Stallone from Rocky. They were frozen when they arrived in their boxing shorts, but at least their hands were warm in the gloves. It was no surprise when they had a fight, but no one would have predicted that the source of their dispute would be a peanut.