this morning's dream
I am walking into a cathedral. The thick, heavy stone walls are cool and dark and there are pillars here and there in the great hall to hold up all the weight. The ceiling seems low, and the space is dark. I am here as a tourist, but as I walk into this room I feel like I have belonged here all my life.
Light begins to pour into the room, and I notice that there are windows all around the outside walls. The biggest window is at the front of the cathedral, and it is both wide and tall, taller than the room itself. As the windows fill the room with light, the chandeliers burst into flame. Candles and crystal arranged in the shapes of flowers and geometric stars dance and ignite all around me, and I am filled with exquisite light. I bow my head in thanks.
Then I notice a man at the front of the room, wearing cream-coloured robes and a small conical hat that stands up off his head. People come up to him, and an exchange takes place between them. I am curious, and I push through throngs of praying women in dark robes to go up to the front of the room and find out what is happening. As I look I see money change hands between the tourist and the robed man. Then I see an advertising poster, with happy tourists riding some kind of machine over snow-capped peaks.
Suddenly, a door opens in the front corner of the cathedral. A giant mechanical worm passes directly in front of me, heaving and groaning with noise. There are tourists riding astride the worm, their legs hanging down over the aluminum panelling, their noses pink with cold and pleasure. I recoil, the heat and noise of the engines ringing in my ears and rising in my throat. A crowd of people presses forwards, pushing me towards the giant worm. My heart is pounding, and I duck out of the crowd.
It becomes known to me that this is the All-Terrain-Worm, and the man at the front of the room was selling tickets to tourists for a ride on this worm. "Due to the nature of the mountainous terrain around the cathedral, it is impossible for tourists to explore the area on foot or in private cars. In addition, the All-Terrain-Worm is the only way to see the vast underground chambers and passageways the cathedral is built on." I try to get past the worm to see beyond the open door. The incline doesn't seem too bad, but the driver of the worm shouts "It gets a lot worse than that, love! You'll never be able to get far on your own. Buy a ticket for the All-Terrain-Worm instead!"
We decide to explore the rest of the cathedral, and enter into an adjoining room. The light is cold and harsh, like flourescent institutional bulbs or an overcast day that casts no shadows on the ground. The walls and pillars are the same as in the main cathedral room, but this room has ledges crowded full of people all around the perimeter. Below the ledges is what looks like the frame of a boat, but I get the feeling that it's not actually a complete boat - somehow I think there is no bottom, and there is some kind of ethnic cleansing or torturous punishment being meted out inside that boat. I am filled with the realisation that the poor unfortunate souls trapped down there are about to be buried alive. A blond woman pushes through the crowds on the ledges, pulling her son behind her. I fear they will fall off the ledge and be trapped in the abyss forever.
We decide to keep exploring, and come across a food court in another adjoining passage. There is advertising everywhere - buy Pizza Hut! Jacket Potatoes! Baked Bananas with lavender and cream! I go up to the counter to purchase two Jacket Potatoes and one Baked Banana with Lavender, and Tom gives me several 2euro coins. But when I pay for it I use a 50euro note, and the guy behind the grimy counter passes me back what looks like a badly-done russian forgery of a 50euro note. I can't shake the feeling that I've been ripped off, and it was my fault for not using the coins. But we take our food and go to sit and eat beside some low rectanguar zen-like pools.
- - - - -
I am outside the cathedral, walking over deep snowdrifts and rolling hills. As I come to the top of a hill, I see the adjoining town laid out across the narrow valley and up onto the neighbouring hills. The sky is drawn close, an indigo velvet curtain pulled slowly across a bedroom window. All the houses are built very tightly together, and their pink and yellow walls meet so closely that the town itself seems like a persian carpet spread out over the valley, or patterned icing on a sweet cake. There is snow all around.