Dream, Reality, Reprise

I remembered another dream while I was out on my bike this evening, riding towards the sinking sun, dazzled by reflections from today's torrential rain's puddles, and itchy-faced from the drifting pollen of the white-flowered thingies embedded in the hedges; the pollen blown across the road in little gusts, backlit by the sun - pretty but itchy...

Anyway, I think it was something about the light that reminded me of this other dream, which I had in 1992 (or thereabouts). There are elements of it that are vivid vivid vivid, and it has stuck in my memory awaiting periodic reawakening. As usual, it's about an unrequited love (yawn): this time, the woman who's called 'Alice' whenever she turns up in anything I've written - one of a number of elfin waifs who flit across the stage periodically.

Remembering this dream, it occurs to me that my dream scenarios are as limited as the storylines hatched by a veteran script writer on EastEnders who's come into work on a Wednesday morning with a hangover: predictable and cliched. In this dream, I'm waiting for a train again, at an overground Undergound ("Wombling free...") station (again); this time it's one of the Ruislip stations (or a close adaptation thereof, with a very distinctive footbridge in glossy green painted cast iron lattice work, which is shining in the golden morning sunlight. It's late spring or early summer: the copious green foliage in the cuttings echoes the glossy green metalwork of the footbridge, and the sunshine casts a warm, life-giving glow on every surface and texture that it touches.

This is my usual station: the usually dull place where my dreaded journey to work starts every day. But today it looks crisp, rich, and beautiful. And she's there. This is a departure from the norm: she - Alice - lives on the other side of London. But, in the dream, she comes and sits next to me on the gloss-painted wooden bench, and I can see, in the bright sunlight, that her dark hair has got little filaments of red in it. She's right up close, and I can see the individual, sun-illuminated strands. She's wearing a dark, dark blue dress and jacket, both with tiny white polka dot patterns; each white dot is clear and precise in the light, and I can see the texture of the fabric. It's so real.

We're talking, and I know that, if we keep talking, the conversation will flow in the direction that I've longed for for so long, and the interconnected blocks of speech will carry us - inevitably - to our mutual declarations of love. If the train comes and she doesn't get up, I know that these declarations will unfold, and that we'll be together. I wake up before the train comes.

Such romantic wish fulfilment. ;-)