September 9th 2017. Whitley Bay.
Angela D’s friend from the 1980s, Karen, has arrived at my flat door. Her eye make-up is more gothic than ever! She is frantic, erratic & annoying! She tells me that she hates being dead. My flat is made of glass – the walls, the doors, the ceiling, the furniture; everything. I try to hide from her behind a door – but, of course, it is pointless!
On a slip road at the side of a motorway. The roar of the traffic is muffled behind huge hedges. I am walking over the quiet tarmac with Lita (again, from the early 1980s). There is ‘an air of the future’ & the suspicion that everything is under surveillence. We both have large, gold-framed mirrors tucked under our arms. We also carry several small, gold boxes. We climb the grass verge & weave in & out of the trees & bushes toward an industrial estate (perhaps Croydon Airport or Purley Way). It is eerie.
It is growing dark. Lita has disappeared & now I am with mum. We are lost on the industrial estate: vast, slab-concrete buildings, subways & staircases. Again, the sense of ‘surveillence’ pervades the atmosphere. I remember that we are supposed to be meeting someone at a party. But we are late now. Mum is beginning to panic. Eventually, for some reason, we decide to go through a dark, metal door – rusty, open, graffitied – & up some stairs. It is dark in here & it feels reckless & dangerous. Several floors up I see a man (through a series of cracks in the walls). He is sweeping the floor. When we reach him, I ask, “Do you know where ________ is?” He leans on his broom & studies us. He is skinny, with greasy, swept-back hair. He has a lump on his chest beneath his shirt. It is the size of a tennis ball. “Ah, you are the last to arrive,” he says. “You almost missed the party.” He points to a door at the end of the corridor. It is open & inside I can see that a party of people are chatting & drinking.
In the party. I look out of a window. There is a boy on the concrete below. He looks up into my eyes & begins to float up toward me.
nickreeves 