Dreamworld 3

I was stood in a circle of gangsters. The top gangster shot them all dead, one after the other. They dropped to the ground all stiff and motionless, one after the other. Then he offered me his car. It was a mini go kart, shaped like a batmobile. I took off it in at speed, then lifted off into the sky. I was flying. I soared over the rooftops in the moony night, then landed like a professional outside my flat. I rang my dealer, but his phone was engaged. I tried again and again until I eventually got through. He said he had none but was getting some soon. I waited and waited. Finally he got some and invited me round to his place. I took my bicycle, but the tyres were flat, and it was like cycling through treacle all the way there. At last I arrived, but he wasn’t in. I waited and waited again. When he arrived he said come in. He cut the drugs with a blunt knife. It took forever. My patience was wearing thin. When he handed me the fat white bag I got on my bike and tried to make my way home. The harder I pedalled, the slower my journey was. It was then I saw the Skullbuster fly across the sky. The Skullbuster was a huge metallic flying spacecraft in the shape of a skull. The noise it made was deafening. It cruised past me and disappeared between two wobbling skyscrapers. The skyscrapers were wobbling because the earth was shaking. I stood in awe, looking after the lingering shadow of the Skullbuster. Then I carried on home. My personal stripper was waiting for me in my flat. She had breasts the size of Christmas turkeys. I tried to remove my clothes but they wouldn’t come off. It was as if they were superglued onto my skin. I struggled for what felt like hours. Finally I was naked and I gave her a quick hug. We stuck to each other like sticky tape. I had to violently remove myself from her syrupy embrace. I addressed my drugs, emptying the white powder onto a mirror. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I looked like a teenage boy. My hair and teeth were better. My skin was smoother. I looked beautiful. My stripper started singing in anticipation of the festivities ahead. Her voice was melodic and graceful. I lived for drug-fuelled lovemaking with my stripper. It didn’t happen very often but when it did I was very happy. I took a rolled-up note and bent down to snort the goods. It was then I realised that all of the white powder had melted into water. My heart sank. It had evaporated into nothing. I snorted it anyway, knowing it would have no effect, knowing that all my efforts had been for nothing. My stripper stopped singing, and then she started evaporating too, like a ghost whose allocated time is up. And then I awoke, in my bed, free of the predictable disappointments of the dreamworld. I rang my dealer.

Dreamworld 2

I was sat in the street with my cousin. It was a blessing, because I hadn’t seen her for over twenty years. She was so very small, so very young, so very nostalgic and spiritual and free. In fact, I had a photo of her on my person. I checked the photo, and continued to admire her perfect physical form. Her image and the photo were identical. The photo was over two decades old but she hadn’t changed a single molecule. Still a heavenly child, forever precious in my memory and even more precious in person. Only my late Dad could drag me away from her. He was struggling to control a beefy Rottweiler that kept jumping up at me. I was pleased to see that Dad had three copies of the first book I had ever wrote on him. He looked very proud. I wrote this fact down on my hand, so I wouldn’t forget it: Dad looks very proud of me. I then took off running along the dark suburbs of Manchester. Suddenly, up ahead, concerning several yobs, a fight broke out. It looked particularly violent, so I hid behind a bin. The only thing was, the light from my phone attracted them. They came over as one brawling gang and made me drink poison. I woke up from the poison on an oil rig with my mate. I asked him what time it was, because I knew he could not answer me. He could not answer me because he was a pigment of my imagination in my very own dream. Yet still he was a person stood before me and I was very curious as to his response. He stalled numerous times, but I kept pushing for an answer. Finally, he said it was 3pm. I then asked him what day it was. He answered quickly, but he got it wrong. I told him I was dreaming, told him he wasn’t real. He shrugged this off and got back to work. I found myself in a precarious position then. I was trying to walk along various door handles stuck into a high wall. Rock-climbing, in effect. Around me was a balcony chock-full with people. I fell towards water, but at the last minute decided I could fly. I flew across the surface of the water, up and down, along and back, gently skimming it, posing and showing off before the audience. I bombed into the depths, and then flew back up like Superman, laughing. I bounced off all the walls but felt no pain. It was bliss. Then security stopped me, and demanded to see the photo of my cousin, as if it was identification. She’s still the same, I told them, and my dad’s proud of me. They said the boss would have to see me, so I began to wake up, gently shaking myself. On second thought, I said no, I’m happy here, I think I’ll stay for a little while longer. But I wasn’t waiting for no boss, not in my own dream, where I was the boss, so I flew down into the water again and decided to go a level deeper, beyond the bottom. It was there where I found a chapel with Andy in. Andy had come back from the dead at his own funeral, but nobody was telling him, and he didn’t even know he was back, wasn’t aware he had even died. His memory must have been wiped, people were whispering behind his back. I sat and rejoiced with Andy. Then I awoke and wrote it all down. The dreamworld can be nice to me, sometimes. I’m not always afraid to close my eyes. In fact, there are rare occasions when I get excited.

Dreamworld 1

I’m lying in a trench. I am with many other people. It’s dark, so dark. Everyone seems to be in stasis, not quite asleep, but dormant. I peered up to see a balcony with a warden keeping watch on it. He peered out over the mass of bodies with indifference, as if he had been there a very long time. He didn’t look in my direction. I tried to get up, to free myself from the other slumped carcasses and face the truth of what the surface had to offer. But the person next to me held me back. The person next to me held me back with a hook. The person next to me didn’t have a hand, the person next to me had a hook for a hand. But its touch was warm, a tender touch, a kind hook, a loving hook. It didn’t want me to wake up yet, it felt it best that I reside in the quagmire of sleepy ignorant kinsmen. What was above the surface? I must have been sleepwalking because I found myself up and out of that desolate pit of which I never wanted to be reacquainted with again for the whole of my life. I didn’t know where home was but I followed my gut and headed for the brightest star. I followed it until it sank into the twilight, and ended up in a train station. A single carriage pulled up. The warden from the murky hollow cavity in the ground where I had escaped from was driving. He asked me would I like to go back to Sovereign Pit. He said my return was eventually inevitable. Eventually inevitable. I spun on my heels and calmly strolled away into the other direction, leaving the station and its single lonely carriage behind me. It remained there, waiting for me to change my mind. I then found myself in the countryside, lost and confused. I pushed on, no direction in mind, no hurry in my heart, just all of eternity, it felt like, to peruse where I was and how I had gotten there. I was not surprised when a black stallion crossed my path, twice as tall as a regular black stallion. Its underside was covered in nipple-teats, like a pregnant pig. I was also not surprised when it spoke to another horse, behind a bush. The horse it was speaking to spoke back. I couldn’t suppress the notion that they were both conspiring about me. In a brief show of bravado, I told them to fuck off. The wind told me to fuck off back, a disembodied voice across the ether. I glanced down at my feet then, and realised I had no shoes on. This was when I began to get very concerned about my situation. It only just occurred to me that I might be dreaming. Startled, I ducked my head into the nearest stream. To my dismay, this plan failed to work. I was still there in the Dreamworld. The warden from Sovereign Pit drove by in a limousine . He seemed to take pleasure in my aghast reaction to this forlorn wilderness. I could not understand why. I had to wake up though, so I shook my head violently from side to side, shaking in a state of distressed denial. It worked. I awoke in my bed. And that was the end of the Dreamworld. For now. Until I next closed my eyes. Sometimes, I’m afraid to close my eyes.