fishers, surfers and casters

I haven’t yet told Mum of the news, but I head down the hallway of my parents’ house to my bedroom, and when I enter I see that I’m at my desk in my office at work. On my desk is a card, made from office paper with a crayon drawing on the cover. I open the card to find a message, and I know it’s been left here by the Man. It reads:

Drastic measures needed to be undertaken
For such a bold move
But to your benefit it was done

Please let your brother, the Artist, know of what has transpired tonight

The Woman is standing next to me, and the Man is behind her, spinning gleefully in circles in his miniature wheelchair. The Woman smiles, places a hand on my shoulder, and the pain dissipates. As they disappear I wonder who my brother, the Artist, is meant to be. I think that I need to draw the events on a canvas, and then I say to myself, “I’m a better writer than a painter.”

And that’s when I find myself in a pitch-black room, raised from my pillow, panting and thinking, “That was a dream?” I jump out of bed and race to the light switch, and the turn on the lights in the corridor, kitchen, study and both out the front and back of the house, calling out to find out if I’m really alone in the house. I enter my study, open my wallet to see if my credit card is still there. It is. I see the clock and notice it’s two in the morning. I’m reminded that to day is payday and that I have payments deducted from my bank account today. I think about how much money I have to spend this week and the next, and wonder whether I should call Mum, and what a really stupid mess that would make for everyone. So I open my computer and begin writing.

I feel a finger being jabbed into my butt, millimetres from my anus, and right into the bone, causing extreme pain. I arch my back and writhe about, trying to free myself from this unbelievable agony, but the grip on my body was too strong. I twist my body to see who is behind me. It’s the Woman, once helpless, has now a fierce expression, with a wry, Mephistophelian smile. I hear the Man laughing. With one finger I’m made helpless and trapped in excruciating pain.

I manage to let escape some words: “Who are you? What do you want?” She chuckles and says, “I am the Man.” I twist back to see the Man’s absence. Then I feel another hand on my butt, and my wallet is taken from my back pocket. I twist again to see the Man trailing off into the distance. I realise that the Man and the Woman are not of this world when I recognise that his hand did not enter my pocket in the usual way; it was as if it had glided through my clothes and skin, collecting the wallet as it went. I instantly realise that the Man and the Woman are shapeshifters. The Woman laughs and disappears.

I’m running now, up the street towards my parents’ house. I run into the house to tell my mother that my wallet has been stolen, to find my parents preparing my sister, together with about twelve other children, for a school play. The rooms are filled with prepubescent children, in black costumes, with faces whitened by make up and dark, dark eyes, staring at me, singing and spinning. I approach Mum, with the intent of telling her what has happened, but I feel a pain inside me which tells me that the person in front of me is actually the Woman, shifted into my mother’s shape. She tells me that if I tell anyone, my money will be all spent.

I am terribly upset, perhaps more so than if my wallet were stolen in real life; I feel as though I will never earn money again, that I will be forever destitute. I run from the house, down the street and through the park where I have spent many childhood weekends. In the distance I can see the Man rolling away, laughing. I run to the house next to the park, where an old friend used to live. I knock on the door where a woman I did not recognise appears. My friend’s family have moved. I venture to ask her to call the police, but I feel the Woman’s presence behind me, whispering, “If you tell, it will be too late.” And I feel that pain again.

I run back to my parents’ house, where the children are being loaded into a mini-van, on the way to the school play. My father is in the driver’s seat, while my mother is still inside the house. I go into the house and pick up a phone, with the intent of cancelling my credit card. But there is no dial-tone, and I figure it’s the work of the Man and the Woman. I see Mum again, who is now outside helping the children, and I hear the Woman whispering into my ear, “If you tell, she will not believe you. She will think you psychotic, and force you inside the house.” At the same time, I see her in the van with the children. She is now bald, her black hair gone, and she is shaving the heads of the children, while they are still singing and dancing in the van. They rub their scalps, noticing the hair is gone but without concern.

My mother sees my distress; I’m holding my head in confusion and disbelief, walking in circles crying, “No. No. You can’t do this to me,” and holding my hands out to the van as it dries off down the road. I see the Woman lift herself through the roof of the van and fly away, and I’m screaming at her of the injustice done. Mum looks at me as if I am indeed psychotic. I run back inside and try the phone again, switching it on and off, shouting at it as if it’d respond to my plea with a dial tone. My mother is now as upset as I am by the sight of me.

And then I realise what I must do. I decide to tell her that I am suffering from a debilitating mental illness that is the cause of my distress, and that I must give her power-of-attorney of all my assets, so that I don’t do anything stupid with my future, and that I have to move back home. I hear the Woman in my ear again, saying, “Good idea. That’s what we want.”

While it seems like a dramatic choice to make so quickly, I feel satisfied at having made the decision. I feel like I can forget about being responsible for myself for a while, and let myself be cared for. I see myself in a padded cell, surrounded by crayon drawings of forests and rivers, being entertained by my own imagination.

Did you ever have one of those dreams that made you wake up suddenly, your head raised from your pillow, thinking “That was all a dream? It seemed too real.”? Did you ever have one of those dreams that made you jump out of bed, turn on all the lights in the house, searching for another presence, an intruder, corporeal or otherwise?

This dream made me do both.

It starts out with me in the office, being summoned by my boss regarding a sensitive matter. Please note that in this dream, like in many, time converges, so in many parts I’m an adult doing my normal thing, and in other parts I’m a fourteen year old living with my parents in my old house and going to school. The story may not make sense to you without this premise.

In her office, my boss tells me she has a friend, living out of town, who’s being harassed by an ex-boyfriend, and is quite scared. This friend has requested to talk with me about it. I oblige and head out, into the desert, to an old dilapidated house on the corner of a road and a railway line. I get out of the car, knock on the door, wait for a response that does not come, circumnavigate the house, peering into windows and out into the vast dusty flat expanse of the landscape.

Down the road I see a small figure dashing toward me. It’s a man. He’s dressed in blue, sitting a tiny wheelchair, small enough that his arms reach the bitumen where he pushes himself along, gliding along the road as swiftly as an old car. He calls out to me, angrily, “Have you come to save her from me?”

As he approaches I can make out his face. He has sandy hair, a rough face with a goatee, and a look of pure aggression. I remember that though my body is not trained for fighting, my size can feign enough power to thwart a confrontation, and my lungs can summon enough rage to scare off people. I reply to him, “Get away from here, fuck off now!” I see his rage turn to fear on his face, and he makes a U-turn, departing as swiftly as he came, but then something catches his eye, and he makes a left turn towards a new destination.

It’s her. She is dressed in black, with high, messy hair that falls below her elbows, wearing a black oversized shirt, black pants and boots. She is limping along the road, supported by crutches, calling out to me for help as the Man comes nearer. I run to intercept the ensuing attack, and stand in between the Man and the Woman, using nothing but my obvious size advantage to protect her. The Man and I are engaged in a shouting duel, which I thought would buy enough time for the Woman to reach her house, but the yelling match was cut short.

I’ve offered three theses so far, but that’s not all. I actually have five planned, but other things have prevented me from compiling them for all y’all – including writing a lecture, helping students prepare for their assignments, moving house, preparing for a Graduate Research Conference, and preparing three papers for two conferences coming up.

Speaking of conferences, it seems I am the lucky boy. I’ll be crossing the equator about six times this year, with a conference in Nairobi in August (proceeding a little three-day stint in Dubai) and then off to Vancouver in October where I’ll be offering the AoIR a couple of papers.

Back to the theses, I’ll be making links on one of the blog’s pages so they’ll be easy to access in a few months time, but I hope to have theses 4 and 5 done in the next couple of weeks with any luck.

</excuses><back to work>