Another dream text

A DREAM ABOUT VIOLENCE and SHOES and TRYING TO FIND A WAY OUT.

I am in te middle of a discussion with another guy who is loosing ground and becomes very angry.

Shut the f*** up, he yells at me, or I’ll become violent in a while.

He looks a bit like my brother but he is not my brother.

I continue to reason with him because I like the controversy of our debate.

Shut up, shut up, shut up, he shouts and changes into somebody close to the incredible Hulk. His muscles are swollen and thick. I see the veins pulsing in his face. He blows up like an elephant but all I see is a giant torso, shoulders, part of the back, arms with fists like sledgehammers but no legs or feet at all.

I am going to kill you, he mumbles.

How are you going to do this if you only have a torso, is my final question and I walk away from the ugly scene towards a nearby town.

I try to find a bar because I am thirsty after all that shouting and menaces.

I see what I think is a bar but it is not, it is a mix of a giant shop and a factory.

Conveyor belts run thru the place from different sides at ones. It is like being caught in a maze. On the conveyors are a mixture of shoes, men shoes, women shoes, shoes for children, orthopedic shoes, shoes for little people even. I try to get out but I cannot find the entrance anymore.

I am puzzled. How do I leave this crazy place? I ask to a shopkeeper who looks a bit like my brother but who is not my brother.

You have to choose a pair of shoes, says the guy.

Man, I am like Alice in Wonderland but instead of eat me, drink me, it is pick up a pair of shoes!

I pay for a pair of ladies shoes, all glittering, with many colors and little stars and ribbons around them, a pair of art shoes for my friend Liza is my thinking. Suddenly I see an escape door.

I take the subway to visit Liza when a train arrives at the platform. I see another lady friend of mine entering the train. I have not seen her in years, so I follow her and try to connect with her on the train. I go from wagon to wagon but without any success. It is like she is vanished in thin air!

Louise, Louise, I cry, where are you? It is Guido here!!

In the last wagon a lot of people are packed before a bar. A jazz orchestra is playing New Orleans music and people are drinking and dancing and talking loudly because of the noise.

Midgets are carrying the drinks between the people. They have naked torsos but wear pants and a bow tie. We have to be careful or we trample on them, a drunken man whispers to me.

He looks a bit like my brother but is not my brother.

That’s why we leave our shoes behind, so we cannot hurt the little folk.

Everybody has indeed bare feet. Are you a cross dresser, a woman asks me, she looks like my niece but is not my niece. No, these are escape shoes for Liza, I explain.

The train fades away and changes into a giant bed. Everybody is asleep. I try to look thru the window and am facing a black wall which is crossing by at incredible speed. I focus on the wall and then see that the background color is black but that the wall has several colors (mainly red blue, yellow and orange). The colors make forms and shapes, without any meaning, almost amoebic forms, asemics in strange patterns and rhythms, no clear harmony or balance.

I close my eyes and open them again to focus more on the wall. Lights sparkle in my retina.

I feel someone is jumping on my legs.

I close my eyes and open them again and see the wooden cupboard in my bedroom.

My youngest kitten is walking on my legs.

Did you bring any shoes for my poor paws, he asks me and I return to sleep at once.

Guido Vermeulen, May 2012
Dreaming art by Lesley Magwood Fraser, South Africa