Dream #24- Guernica

We walk through the high brown marble arches of the museum, funneled toward the heavy oak door at the end of the room by thick black velvet ropes. Sam and I are close behind a youngish man in a tweed jacket with a pack of students behind us. He’s handsome and successful and about my age. She skips up beside the man and grabs his arm. I watch her long blonde hair waving wistfully as she jumps ahead with glee. “So how do you become a published author?” she asks the man. I’m a little jealous as I watch her turn to look for his answer. But at the same time I want to hear the answer, too, hoping to hear something profound and meaningful, something to help me with my writer’s block, my laziness, my insomnia or other various woes. He turns to look her in the eye knowing he’s got a fish on the line. He smirks and spits out something glib.

Unsatisfied I wander off by myself. I find a large room of the same brown and white marble, high ceiling and heavy oak doors carved with intricate motifs. There is not, however much of anything in it but a set of stairs leading up to the floor I stand on and another set leading up to the next. I’m staring at a remote control in my hand. A simple black box with a blinking red light on it. I have no idea what this is supposed to do. Yet I feel confident it is doing what it is supposed to. I become aware of Sam staring at me curiously from the bottom of the stairs to my right, her head cocked slightly. She runs a hand through her hair and calls my name. Though she doesn’t say it, the word “silly” echoes through the halls of my audio canals. I ignore her and become engrossed with the schedule I’m holding in my other hand. I’ve missed most of the presentations listed, they having started at 10:35 and it being close to 4 in the afternoon. The room contained no windows or skylight but I could feel the long slanted rays of the sun edging the horizon outside. I spot a lecture that looks promising and figure I can make it just in time if I hurry.

I start moving through the crowds of students milling about. Somehow I’ve made my way into some kind of underground dormitory that is just packed with people. I mean packed like a cattle car. People stand in the hallways, sit on bunk beds – top and bottom, press up against support columns and each other. I half heartedly search the faces for an attractive girl or two to distract me but they’re all so bland and generic, all had blonde hair and plain faces, the same dead brown eyes, listless and empty though their bodies and mouths moved energetically in conversation with others. I feel good though. Very good. I move quickly through the crowd, climbing like a young orangutan over other people, agility personified. I start ascending a long broad staircase with a black railing running up the center. I’m aware of a shift in the movement of the crowd. Though some still move toward me, the majority have turned to follow me. I feel a slight bump against me but think nothing of it. I’m feeling too good, too energetic to slow down. I briefly fancy there is a television camera following my ascent. I feel like Rocky in training. But I check myself. I feel like my right foot is kicking out to the side as I jog upwards, upwards, upwards and feel like whoever is watching would be wondering why I was doing that. Sheepishly I try to keep my foot tucked in underneath me.  Up, up, up. I see daylight ahead of me and yearn for it; I want to feel that sunlight on my shoulders and I want the sun to feel my warmth. I break through into the light of a Spanish city. Directly ahead of me, in white and glass, gleams a beautiful resort for the rich young socialites settling on the hillside like a blanket. To the right are likewise tiered houses of the rich in sombre hues of burnt sienna and umber and roan red and dusky yellow shingled in clay tiles. Behind me are the slums. They don’t look much different from the houses on the hill, really, but they don’t shine, they aren’t as clean, the streets littered with trash and rusty bicycles, cast in the shadow of the hill. “The difference between the rich and the poor is the light in their life.” I can’t tell if someone behind me said that or the words formed of their own accord and traversed my brain.

I pull out my camera to take a nice travel picture of the resort. I can feel it going to be the kind of picture you see in magazines. The camera feels heavy and oversized in my hands at arms’ length with the flash and 40mm lens. It’s the widest angle I have and I hope it will catch the scene just right with the glint of steel against the blue, blue sky. I’m aware of some jackass at a bit of distance running through my shot trying to photobomb me. I ignore him. But the shutter isn’t tripping when I press the button and I’m concerned. The lens is focusing but the shutter doesn’t click. I think maybe the flash is screwing with it somehow. I try again and again I’m aware of the guy trying to somehow make himself famous or ruin my picture. Again and again I press the button with no click and again and again the guy runs through my shot. I pull the camera close to have a look at the problem and notice it has gotten much darker – past dusk though there is still a line of light blue on the horizon. The picture won’t turn out now and I’m vaguely aware that the sudden change of light suggests I’m dreaming but try taking the picture again anyway. Again the guy crosses my line of sight. I give up and lower the camera. Reaching for my wallet I notice it is gone. My mind flits back to the bump on the stairs and I’m suddenly much more suspicious of my photobomber. But it’s ok, I think to myself. I spot a traffic cop in blue and a reflective vest directing traffic in the neon streets of a bustling, humid, Spanish night. I’ve been through this before, this being walletless. But then I think last time I still had my passport – something to identify me to the authorities, something to prove I am who I say I am. I feel panicky as I realize the traffic cop won’t understand me nor I him. I have nowhere to turn and no money to get there if I did. I suddenly hate Spain by moonlight again and sink back into the shadows of the slums.