30 Oct 2008, Posted by Cat in News, 14 Comments. Tagged nightmare

nightmare

Had a nightmare last night. I know it was a nightmare because I was so relieved when I woke and learned none of it was real.

I was meeting with a musician friend in a fashionable Darlinghurst or Surry Hills café. I was wearing a particular black suit I used to own — a suit I discarded when I left the public service. We were there because I was hiring him to perform music at a government function. A simple arrangement. I handed him some cash in advance but when it came to me explaining where the gig was going to be, I found I couldn’t quite remember the name of the place. I thought I knew where it was and tried to describe it, but soon realised I was going to have to phone my office for confirmation. Easier said than done — I carried with me a highly sophisticated internet phone but I couldn’t work out how to use it. The screen displayed a football match  — my friend watched it over my shoulder as we walked down the road towards the city. Time was passing. The gig was in a few hours and I still couldn’t tell him where he was supposed to go.

We walked on, talking casually about all sorts of things, him carrying his guitar case & me still trying to figure out how to use the phone. Dusk fell and the streetscape began to change. Cafes began to bustle with activity, neon signage infused the pathway with muted orange and yellow light. The footpath was overcrowded and I realised I was going to have to catch a bus.

Suddenly my friend abandoned his guitar case and ran towards a clump of bicycles, leapt on one and rode away. I watched him go, wondering what the hell he was doing, then I started to get scared. I didn’t know this part of town. I was completely lost and running out of time. He had vanished and ahead a large black tunnel loomed menacingly. I would have to walk through it to reach the city centre I could see so clearly in the distance, but the tunnel was so frighteningly dark. I stopped walking. I couldn’t go through the tunnel. Shapes shifted in the muddy light and they didn’t look human.

Moments later my friend was back and leading me up a set of wooden stairs to a café high above the street. The sort of place I’d usually enjoy, but it all felt so wrong. He was wrong too — not the guy I thought I knew but a wilder, stranger man altogether, completely at home in this bizarre environment where I was not. I was an outsider, utterly, hopelessly and desperately lost.