five red balloons

“No, you don’t understand,” he says, and I see him slip the dinner knives in his pocket.  

The smell in here is damp, and the table is long. Hideous wallpaper stretches along the walls.  Dark brown shadows are peeling down the faces of everyone present, like photos from the ’70s. 

I know the man who is talking, through the haze of this dream I am dreaming.  Yes. I realize suddenly, he is my brother.  

It makes perfect sense, of course, that we are all sitting here watching the television, and it also makes perfect sense that I am living what the television screen is showing.

Because I slowly realize that I am not in that room, after all.  I am actually standing on dewy grass, talking to a lion.  The grass is real green, not neon like the image on the screen.  My brother is there too.  He pulls the dinner knives out of his pocket, but no – they are swords now.

Of course!  Now I understand why he took the knives.  He looks at me, smiling, and I feel silly. 

The lion tells us to kneel.

(He has knighted both of us and put the sword in my hand.  I don’t really want a sword) but I don’t think about that anymore, because he is so beautiful, and the air is scented with sweet peas and rain, and I realize, this must be Narnia.

Go out, be fruitful – or I think that’s what he said.  There is no more lion anymore, simply a landscape with flowers that are skipping out of the ground, dancing with the wind, and the distant sound of rustling pages. And then the car drives away, leaving me in front of an enormous old church.

So many stairs.  T is standing next to me. So many stairs, and a wind that breathes down my back, and a trail of goosebumps on my arms.  I can’t hold onto the edge of the darkness anymore.  We start to run up, small bursts of dust catching in my throat.  I have a constant feeling that my mind is recording everything photographically with a grainy film camera and more brown shadows from the ’70s.  Ahead, a light stains the darkness, spreading into the cracks in the stairs.

Boxes and boxes and boxes are stacked on top of each other at the very top.  Like an illustration.  And the first thing I see at the top are his spectacles.  Round lenses, perched on the end of his nose.  He is a small little Chinese man; a wrinkled face with a hunger for knowledge, and on his lap is a book, and a lamp is teetering dangerously on the side of another box. 

We stare at him blankly.  ”Where are we?” But he shakes his head vaguely and mutters something about it being 2am.

And the boxes begin to tumble, and then crumble, and the little old man disappears, and it is midnight again. No lights.  We have reappeared in a new location: the kitchen of this old church.  

Cross-legged, we are sitting on the cold concrete floor, eating crackers with brie cheese.  T keeps feeding small bits of brie to the cat that has suddenly appeared in the room.  Although everything is dark, I can see perfectly.

And, as happens sometimes in dreams, another layer of my mind is analyzing the storyline of the dream, and I am wondering: why can I see in the dark? 

But my alarm rings, and I open my gritty eyes - and no, I cannot see in the dark.  There is no Narnia, no concrete kitchen floor; there are no cats.  But strangely, as I brush my teeth, I realize that I am craving brie cheese.

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dream subconscious Narnia Aslan '70's dinner knives brie T friendship sleep