The Pure Life of Dreams

August 29, 2025August 29, 2025

Driftwood People on Vacation in Indonesia

Elaine and I are on vacation in Indonesia and we are looking for a place on the beach but it is quite crowded. We find a place amongst some rocks where we can put our beach towels. The rocks are a pink hue and have been smoothed down by the ages so that they are fine for lying on. Their curves conform, closely enough with our bodies.

Elaine and I step out towards the waters edge. I walk on into the ocean. The sky is bright with the sun, and I find a low tide area where I can sit. In front of me are some black volcanic rocks, boulders piled up, that jut out of the water.

‘Are you ok swimming near the rocks,’ says a boy from the beach.

But I am okay. I know that the boulders may surround me where I am sitting but the biggest pile is further out to sea, maybe twenty meters away. They are not threatening despite their dark craggy look. I feel the rocks against my thighs where I sit.

Then I go back to shore.

‘It’s too crowded where we are,’ I say to Elaine. ‘Let’s go over there,’ and I point to another less rocky area where the beach does not have sunbathers.

I walk on ahead while Elaine goes to get us coffee. When I get to the area I realize that the old cove is under a huge barn which has wooden beams that are rotten with age. The sun projects through the holes of the barn onto the sand.

Then the sun disappears behind some clouds so the sand is no longer brightly lit. I step through the rocky path up into the main area of the barn further along the cove.

The barn I has an extremely high ceiling, perhaps three storeys high. Wooden trestle tables are scattered on the sand, along the cove. I find a table to sit at.

The sun comes through the holes of the ceiling’s rickety old beams. The beams remind me of driftwood. It is an ideal spot I think. And just I just beginning to wonder whether Elaine will find me when she arrives, balancing two coffees in shallow glass bowls. Each bowl has two or three coffee beans floating in it.

I take one of the coffees and as we sit a local man comes up with a large glass bowl of coffee ice cream.

‘Oh, I forgot I ordered that.’ Elaine nods at the man. Elaine and Dad settle next to the old wooden table in reclining chairs and face each other while we eat our ice cream and drink our coffee.

The sun shifts through the beams at us and I look up to make sure it will not go away.

I feel something clawing, or pawing my left shin. It’s Elaine’s ex-husband, Aaron. He sits next to Elaine but he’s playing footsy with me under the table.

‘Stop it you twat,’ I tell him.

Main photo of driftwood on an Indonesian beach via PickPik.
Photo of boys larking about on another beach in Indonesia also via PickPik.

August 22, 2025August 22, 2025

French Trilogy: A Boy Called Paris

The Elephant and Castle flat was an unusual place.

It was situated in the middle of the Rockhart Estate and was one of many flats that were subsidized to students of Guy’s Hospital in an effort to improve the standards—the estate itself having featured on the BBC as the center for crackheads and dope dealers the previous year.

August 15, 2025August 15, 2025

I Met Alice at the Theater

I sat, Alice to my right and another woman to my left, and watched the stage. Tori Amos was giving a three night performance. The first night was her traditional songs, the second and third would be her new more avant garde material.

I put my arm around Alice’s shoulders though it was not clear I would get back with her after all this time.

The stage was in front of us in a small hall but with mirrors on either side of the stage which reflected the deep red of the curtains on stage as well as that of Tori Amos’ set up. Because of the reflection in the left hand mirror, I thought that the stage was to my left instead of directly in front. I looked for clues that I was looking at a mirror image instead of the real thing. Then I joked to Alice that the right hand mirror view was really the stage.

Alice mumbled something to the fact that I could be right. For a moment I too was confused that the right side had been the stage all along, and not after all, a mirror.

I wondered whether Alice would attend the following nights.

When the performance wound up it was already late. We stepped out of the theater into the street and I asked Alice if she would like a lift home.

We got in my car. The car was old and white but small and I asked for her address.

I pulled away from the front of the theater and turned onto Main Road.

‘It’s off the P road,’ she replied.

Then I pulled the car over against a wall on Main so that I could search up her address.

The wall was wet, shiny brown brick and there was ivy that spilled over the top of the wall that gave it a dark feeling despite the street lamps.

As I flicked through the pages of the A2Z I saw that there was no just such a road on the west side of London.

‘I’m on the east side,’ she explained.

It meant that I would have to drive her over to the east side of London, then drive back over to the west.

It would be very late by the time I got home. The fact made me irritated.

Perhaps I could stay with her tonight, though it was not clear whether she would attend the second performance.

‘Can you give me a postcode?’ I asked.

‘It’s a small road of only eleven houses off the P,’ she answered.

I looked at the P on the A2Z map and it spanned several pages.

‘But what’s the name of the road?’ I asked her.

‘Pembrokeshire,’ she finally said. I looked again on the map then threw the book onto the back seat.

‘Hang it!’ I retorted and I started to type on my phone.

‘What’s the number of your house?’ But she didn’t reply so I guessed a number and I typed it into my phone.

The font of the text in the search box was stricken through which I found odd. Nevertheless the search worked. I held up the phone for her to see the ground view of her street. The picture was of a white washed pub on the corner.

‘Yes, that’s it,’ she replied.

I put the phone on the little tray of the dashboard, so that I could begin the navigation.

In front of the car stood a young black woman who wore a formal black dress as if she were going to a funeral. She asked for a lift. She came over to the left side of the car and I nodded my agreement but then I saw that she had an old woman with her, also dressed in black. The old woman had a brown wooden cane, and could have been the younger woman’s mother. She stepped off the curb and hobbled round to the right side of the car.

How were they both going to fit in? I wondered.

Photo of Tori Amos on her Sinful Attraction tour by Tybo via Flickr.

August 6, 2025August 6, 2025

French Trilogy: Hors D’Oeuvres in Amsterdam

The wind struck in an instant, just as the forecast said it would. Rain lashed the white washed walls of the houses by the sides of the canals and the water from the canals splashed over the barriers, splashed across the paving, and flowed under the doors of any canal-side cottages not already protected by sandbags.

The bicycles that were chained to the iron railings grumbled and groaned against their chain linked locks as the wind pulled their frames.

I could have been in Camden on the Regent’s waterways, but this was Amsterdam. Already wet I pushed open the door to an antique shop by the lock side bridge. I jammed the door shut against the wind.

‘That came faster than I thought,’ I said to no one in particular.

I walked up to the shop counter. A French woman wearing a black and white hooped roll necked sweater stood next to me. She was cute, flat nosed, with her short mousey hair arranged in a very Frenchy bob. As I took off my red oilskin hat my elbow accidentally grazed her sweater. Her breast yielded to the slightest touch. I was a little embarrassed. But my touch was not enough to notice, I hoped, given the extremes of the rain and wind outside.

‘They were right about how fast that came,’ I repeated, then I dusted myself down as if drying off like a dog.

‘I saw what you did there,’ hinted the French woman.

A man stood next to her. He looked at me with an irritated and jealous eye.

’You touched my breast,’ she added bluntly, ‘But that’s okay. Now we might as well hug.’

I hadn’t meant anything by grazing her breast but now it occurred to me that we were destined to meet up.

The French woman gave me a warm hug with her head angled briefly against my shoulder, and her breasts felt gentle and warm against my chest. Instantly I felt better about my actions, but also nervous because I had never chatted up a French woman before.

Then the shopkeeper led us into the back of her shop to a large dining room where all of us would be served.

There were three tables in the room. One large traditional dark wood claw foot dining table to the left where most of the people had been seated, another empty table in the middle of the room, and one more blue table on the far side of the room which seated another group but which lacked the formality of the others given its lack of white table cloth.

I walked up to the claw foot table. Diners were already seated on the side closest to the wall. Another man sat at the far end. And I could have sat opposite the diners against the wall but I wanted to leave space for the French woman to join me, so I opted for the seat at the head of the table nearest me. I waved her over to come join us.

The French woman sat down but she took the seat over one so that another guest might sit between us. I smoothed down the table cloth in front of me and looked at the array of cutlery in front of me.

The hors d’oeuvres came first. A simple asparagus salad on a small glass plate. I was conscious of using the outside fork and knife first.

I chatted to the table. When the waiter delivered my salad I realized he was the man who had been irritated with me at the front of the shop. I was afraid he’d give me a smaller portion but when he plonked the plate down between the cutlery, I could see no discernible difference between mine and the other diners’ servings.

I was the chatty Cathy at the table.

The diners talked about a French man I did not know, and the French woman gave me a knowing smile. I was nervous. How could I get close to her once more? How could I feel and sense the smell and warmth of her hug again.

There was a lull in the conversation. I did not want to dominate the table with speeches. Silence bloated the guests. The French woman gave me an encouraging smile.

‘And then there was the story about Paris,’ I began.

‘No, no. Paris was a man,’ I added. I grew concerned that the story about Paris would be inappropriate. I wondered whether the French woman would appreciate my funny story about Paris.

But it was too late.

Because I had begun.

Photo by Jorge Láscar via Flickr.