dream log 002
An echoing underpass, graffiti declaring that property is theft. Up the steps, and I catch the eye of a student coming out of a laundromat,
where in the dusk a bill-changer blinks like a red eye. The cold light of a sodium streetlamp illuminates a vacant lot.
In the distance, the platform of a commuter train station is visible. It is deserted.
In the carriage, my fellow passengers: a balding man in a tracksuit jacket and khaki pants, talking to himself, a cluster of teenagers filling the whole carriage with the smell of cheap perfume, a neatly groomed yuppie, smartly dressed, staring into his phone, two friends coming back from a hen party, clearly tipsy, loudly discussing people they know.
The train runs for a long time and makes many stops. A brightly lit industrial site drifts past, the outlines of its machinery resembling a fantastical city. The railway company’s jingle, playing at every station and warping in pitch as the train quickly pulls away, accompanies the journey. The rumble of the rails, the creak of the old carriage. The bored train driver makes long-winded announcements with too much information.
That mural wasn’t on that building the last time I was here.
In the train window, streets and buildings that have no counterpart outside are reflected, as if another city were keeping pace with ours tacitly. Along those streets move people who seem unable to see the ones beyond the glass. They are dressed plainly enough, yet each of them wears the left shoe on the right foot and the right on the left. Every time I exhale, they glance around uncertainly, as if they have heard something.
At the station exit there is a fast-food place selling food that never quiets hunger. At the bus stops, two timetables hang side by side. Somehow every passerby knows, without hesitation, which one is meant for them. My phone connects automatically to a mobile network whose name I recognize, though it is written in a script I have never encountered before.
The welcome page offers dream vouchers for sale.
