Dream

I am at an indoor gathering and see my neighbour with her children running around. There is a lineup outside and I see my mum and some close friends waiting to get in. One friend, Mel, has dyed her hair purple with a white/grey streak at the front - she is embracing her age as well as an attempt to look cool. I compliment her and embrace another friend who is stand offish, which is typical of her.

I head back inside and walk into another room which turns out to be a bar area. I approach the bar and order a drink. The bar tender is a strange, gnomish looking man. He places a Heineken on the bar and it looks like a magical concoction. It's colourful and nebulous, almost aura or space-like as it pulsates within the glass. I hand him a ten dollar note and he says my money is not good here and I am grateful for his friendliness. He does take my money but then returns it multifold so there is a structure of colourful notes, 20s, 50s and 10s that he has arranged like a house of cards. I'm unsure whether this is a trick to hoodwink me, but he seems genuine and likeable.

As I go to take a drink, I notice another bartender has taken it and the bar is suddenly crowded with people. I attempt to ask for it back but the gnomish man has disappeared and in his place there is an unruly female bartender who eyes me 'knowingly' and bellows in a guttural voice 'NOT FOR YOUR WHORISH WAYS!' or something insinuating she knows about the bartender's and my 'secret'. The whole establishment hears and is judging and staring at me.

Everywhere I look, people are now sinister, nasty and deformed - the outcasts of society. I attempt to leave quickly without making eye contact. I walk quickly down a fenced alleyway and a large group is heading towards me, one guy has a large bolt as a leg. He is angry and leading a mob of others just as incensed at society.

I end up escaping to the town centre when I think of random shootings and attacks and jump over a metal latticed fence.

Original artwork by Martina Kocian - digitally remastered photo by Jonas Jacobsson on Unsplash