My dream last night was set, very late at night, on Kingsland Road in East London. This is a pertinent detail, so if you don't know Kingsland Road: imagine a street in Hackney where the flow of gentrification money hasn't quite cleansed away the grit and the stains of 'Murder Mile' as it was known in the 80s. The most common sound is police sirens, pretty much any person on it after 7pm is drunk, there are a lot of council estates and angry young lads the Daily Mail would refer to as "hoodies". Although I have to add there are also delightful all-night parties spilling out of the Caribbean hair salons, a string of truly excellent Vietnamese restaurants, a chaotic fruit market and the best independent cinema in East London. It is a familiar place for me, the site of many a dreamy walk home. In this actual dream however, it was decidedly sinister.
I am walking home very late at night. I sense three old men in trenchcoats following me. One of them grabs my wrist. The other two melt back into the shadows, but with their backs to us like a Magritte painting, standing under a silhouetted, wintry tree. It's very dark, but the one who has grabbed my wrist has an almost supernaturally white face. He is hunched over, mouth open wide, eyes showing their whites like a lunatic, that cavernous mouth approaching my finger which I am pointing at him accusingly. Just before he bites my finger off, he pauses with his mouth open, laughs and runs off with his cronies. I try to scream for help but no sound comes out. I try to run in the direction of home. And then I sense three old men following me in the shadows... this sequence repeats until I wake up in terror...
Freudian interpretations aside (he'd have a field day), I wonder what this means. Maybe I feel I'm walking the same roads again and again, ultimately alone, or "trapped in the void between two worlds", as my Swedish friend poetically expressed it.
Or maybe I should just make sure I never miss the last bus home. And it definitely means I should never, ever combine white wine and snus again. Well, maybe just until Lynch releases another film.
p.s. My best friend finds this dream infinitely hilarious. (I suspect it's because of her Finnish genes.) I guess that's why I love her.
