I continue to remember certain dreams

DREAM FRAGMENTATION IN NUMBERS.

On a wall someone has painted I, then a red heart, and beyond that MY BROTHOU.

The artist invites passengers to paint their own messages.

So with a brush and yellow paint I write on the wall I LOVE CHICKEN SOUP.

Excellent, the artist comments and he adds,you should go to Africa to avoid you will die as a stupid white male.

Are you Rosie Winterspoon, I ask him. The name popped just in my head.

No, I am Debora Lakecarer, is his answer.

Okay, thanks Debbie.

Give Rose a kiss from me.

So in the park I kiss a rose and starts bleeding.

463 my blood cells tell me, count to 463 and then you will be in Africa.

I am in a country where people speak Douala.

MUSANGO is the name of my favorite fish in Douala and means peace.

Once I made a painting of the fish Musango for Adamandia Kapsalis in the USA.

She proposed a fish project.

I am standing before a big building painted in yellow and a cripple beggar at the door invites me in.

How many rooms has the building, I ask him?

Nyie Nted Mewon La.

That’s not Douala, I comment (how do I know this?!)

No I speak Ewondo and that means 463,

Of course, everything makes sense that way.

I enter the block and travel from room to room, all rooms are painted in yellow. There are hardly any windows, so it is quite dark. The paint replaces in a way the light.

I see all kinds of people in different situations: families, men alone, women alone, children alone, sick people, dying people even from what looks like starvation or illness or both.

I start getting scared and claustrophobic and want to find my way out again but the more doors I open, the more rooms I encounter with even worse situations than the ones I already witnessed.

I start crying in silence. Tears drop on the earth.

In the next room I meet a woman. She is long and tall, wears a great multi colored dress but to my shock she has an extremely tiny head, as if was shrinken on her body.

What do you want? she asks me gently.

I have lost my way and want to leave this place.

Oh no problem, but first you have to drink some ti or mao with me and my husband.

I shall not offend the laws of hospitality, so I accept. I know that ti is tea and Mao means palm wine.

Her husband greets me. He is a small man but with enormous hands and a very pointed face, almost like a fox. He has an awful nose that ends in a huge knob.

We drink together. Can I ask you an annoying question my new African friends ask me.

Of course.

You are so ugly, you have a mutilated and deformed body. Did you have an accident or were you born this way?

I am perplex, my body is normal but not according to their point of view.

I am born like this.

Oh poor man, you should consult a witch doctor here or otherwise seek help from a plastic surgeon.

I prefer a local marabou.

They smile in comprehension.

 Now how do I get out?

Oh, you know the answer already, they tell me.

Of course, stupid me, I count to 463 and am back and awake in Brussels.

Guido Vermeulen

May 2012

Postcard YELLOW by Rod Summers, The Netherlands