dream diaries…64

May 10th 2019

Waking, beneath the domed ceiling of the Picardy Hotel, to the sound of knocking on the room door. It is Graham T. His shirt is heavily stained with blood. He has been in a knife fight. I am so concerned that I don’t think to ask him how he comes to be in Edinburgh.

May 11th 2019

Familiar faces in unfamiliar places: Joe F, Bill L, etc. [this being a bad dream, I am late for something]. Bill L. comments on Kelly H, whom he has been watching play snooker, “she is a hard woman.”

May 12th 2019

The funeral is a surprisingly large event. Mike W has been asked to play some appropriate and sympathetic tunes on the piano in honour of the deceased. He claims to know the person, an old soldier, well, but he has confused all the timeline dates and plays only songs from WW1 period (i.e. Siegfried Line). Some simple maths reveals that the deceased would have to have been over 100 years old for these songs to be of relevance; he should be playing songs from WW2. When I point this out to him he plays the situation down, saying something like, “well, they’re all wartime songs.”

Later, at the wake, a young woman is noticed in one of the snugs. She is beneath a suntan machine. She lays there, quite oblivious at first – pale and small breasted with strange and sparkling eyes. A large crowd gathers to gawp. I pretend not to notice her as this is a funeral. Darren T sidles up to me. He is quite upset. He says, “I posted a photo of her on FB and she told me to fuck off!”

I go out into a courtyard garden at the rear of the pub to smoke. It resembles a classical garden – or, rather, the illustration of Bauhaus’ early single, Dark Entries*. People and dogs run around. I head toward one of the cloisters and discover a jukebox, but there is a queue to play it. As I wait my turn I see that the remaining food from the wake is being loaded into the back of Mike W’s car. I point this out to the person next to me, saying, “The buffet car!” The joke (if it is actually such) is lost on them.

*Venus Asleep/P. Delvaux.