I have a dream that my teeth are falling apart. It´s a recurring dream. Nothing much happens. The time scale is unclear. I usually see myself as though in a mirror. I am inside white walls. It always starts as a chip in one of my front teeth. Nothing causes the chip. It is more like my teeth are crumbling by themselves. Then I notice more chipped teeth. Some teeth are broken in half. The front ones by now are no more than small triangular spikes. I never feel the pieces of teeth inside my mouth, but I feel them break away. I am always annoyed in the dream that my teeth are falling apart.
When I wake, I bring my hand to my mouth and am relieved to find my teeth in tact.
It is 2.43am. Outside it is minus 15°C. And inside it is minus 15°C as well because the zips don´t work anymore on my tent. The frozen midnight breeze swirls around me, invisible in the night, like a cold unwanted ghost. I think I am having this dream because almost everything I own is breaking.
It is camping equipment, and people are supposed to go camping for 2 or 3 weeks, not 28 months.
In the morning I swear, half laughing, half actually angry, at the cold and useless sun, and the bottled blocks of ice, at the leaking mattress and rusty pans, panniers full of holes and ripped open tyres, and at the spaces left by lost things.
I am jumping because jumping warms you up, and I´m too cold to do something useful. I am singing Smiths´songs, well bellowing and shouting, because around me there is nothing and nobody, and I can see all around for miles. And in the bright cold light of morning, singing, screaming and jumping, I realise I am happy. And not just that, but excited too, about where I am going next, and where I am, and it´s a very simple joy.
Hours later I have packed my tent, and a man rides past on a rusty bicycle, herding one hundred llamas. Exactly, he tells me. We complain about the cold, and he asks if we can swap bikes, and I tell him, no. I tell him that in England with all those llamas he´d be a rich man, and he tells me that in Bolivia with all those llamas he isn´t.
I cycle in knee deep water, above salt. A body of water that has swallowed the sky, reflecting it perfectly back. I am lost on the salt, and the sun sinks, and all around me only white, and tiny mountains far away. In the cold white dusk, giving up trying to find out where I am, I pitch a broken tent and sleep.
When I wake, I bring my hand to my mouth and am relieved to find my teeth in tact.
It is 2.43am. Outside it is minus 15°C. And inside it is minus 15°C as well because the zips don´t work anymore on my tent. The frozen midnight breeze swirls around me, invisible in the night, like a cold unwanted ghost. I think I am having this dream because almost everything I own is breaking.
It is camping equipment, and people are supposed to go camping for 2 or 3 weeks, not 28 months.
In the morning I swear, half laughing, half actually angry, at the cold and useless sun, and the bottled blocks of ice, at the leaking mattress and rusty pans, panniers full of holes and ripped open tyres, and at the spaces left by lost things.
I am jumping because jumping warms you up, and I´m too cold to do something useful. I am singing Smiths´songs, well bellowing and shouting, because around me there is nothing and nobody, and I can see all around for miles. And in the bright cold light of morning, singing, screaming and jumping, I realise I am happy. And not just that, but excited too, about where I am going next, and where I am, and it´s a very simple joy.
Hours later I have packed my tent, and a man rides past on a rusty bicycle, herding one hundred llamas. Exactly, he tells me. We complain about the cold, and he asks if we can swap bikes, and I tell him, no. I tell him that in England with all those llamas he´d be a rich man, and he tells me that in Bolivia with all those llamas he isn´t.
I cycle in knee deep water, above salt. A body of water that has swallowed the sky, reflecting it perfectly back. I am lost on the salt, and the sun sinks, and all around me only white, and tiny mountains far away. In the cold white dusk, giving up trying to find out where I am, I pitch a broken tent and sleep.
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