Manoukian, Author at The Pure Life of Dreams

May 10, 2022April 11, 2025

Buying a Flat Opposite the Dinosaurs

I am barely awake as Elaine and her boyfriend lie next to me on a bed in an upstairs flat in Hanwell.

They are canoodling even though I have my hand on her bare shoulder. And he is a bit rough looking; droopy alcohol eyes, red pyjamas, not very attractive I think, but I can’t really judge her, it is her choice. I was lying there with Elaine talking things through, when he joined us and she turned to kiss him.

They got off the bed and left the room. And in the other bed was one of the tenants who would be renting the flat that the four of us, Elaine, me, Steven and Andrew were buying.

I had come over there for the first time some days earlier and it was unfurnished then. Elaine had brought me; and she’d introduced me to Steven, who was well dressed and clearly smart, although I was still wary of going halves on a flat with Elaine’s friends. I wasn’t sure how well she knew them.

We’d spent a good deal of time looking around. The other side of the road, there were dinosaurs on a rooftop balcony. And Elaine gave me her cell phone when Andrew called through, so I got to talk him for a short while about where we could meet, the four of us, for dinner. He too, sounded polished and I wondered whether I should dress up for the restaurant; to establish a level playing field so that Elaine and I wouldn’t get jipped…

As Elaine is leaving the bedroom with her boyfriend I look out the window. I see again, the open balcony on the opposite side of the road, with the large number of dinosaurs that dance on their bases. They are black and burnished gold and at first I think they are real, they are so well made. There is a T-Rex and and a Pterodactyl, as well as a crane and other more modern creatures, moving mechanically.

And to one side a father holds his baby up, pretends to fly him in the air.

“Way to give him nightmares and a complex when he’s thirteen or eighteen,” I say.

The T-Rex’s arms move fast in a circular motion as do the arms or legs or wings of the other creatures, and I feel a bit stupid for thinking they were real.

The tenant gets up from her bed to look. She is in her twenties, chunky, and pale, almost white skinned. And she wears a powder blue nightie, short, with thin shoulder straps.

As her feet hit the floor her penis spills out from under her nightie; it is thick, large, a good few inches and folded a little.

She catches me looking and smiles lasciviously at me.

“Let me get a good look at that yanky!” she says, but I try an escape for the door.

She grabs at my underpants and they get stuck half way down my buttocks as I pull away from her. I am shy, I don’t want to reveal myself, I can’t match her, I fear her disappointment, before I relent. Instead I turn around and we fall back on her bed.

As we fall, I find myself on top of her, her cute wide face framed with black, short cropped bangs. I bury my head under her chin, kiss her soft white neck. And she begins to reach between my legs.

“I want you.” I say to her, hesitantly and truthfully, “but we should be alone, the others are still here.”

I wake up, stirred.

Image by rubiopinar from Pixabay, cropped

May 4, 2022July 26, 2025

Jamal Ahmad was Shot Dead in the Age of Gentrification

I dream that I am crossing the road using the pedestrian bridge. It climbs high to clear the noisy traffic below and is all grey steel and yellow girders, clanging with my steps.

It was where Jamal Ahmad was shot dead. I have the magazine article about the unjust killing of a black man in my jacket pocket, rolled up .

There is menace in the air and a number of parades are scheduled for commemoration and protest.

As I exit the other end of the pedestrian bridge several black youths are coming the other way along the footpath. They climb the steps, and scatter; they push their way past me, and start to holler. I don’t know how to express sympathy without seeming churlish.

But I need to get back home, and so I take a short cut through the shopping mall. The back way cuts through a pub that is thick with smoke and the smell of day old booze. Wooden panels and TV screens; it looks like Celtic are playing, maybe with Rangers, but I can’t see the score.

I could have a drink. There is a full pint of lager on the counter in a tall glass, but I think better of it and exit the back way, through a corridor into the hotel. And the hotel is newly done up with bright yellow walls and black moldings. Sleek black furnishings, oversized leather couches and side tables are arranged across white tile.

As it is early in the morning only one half of the lobby is lit and the lights are still off on the far side. I remember when it used to be a department store; Marks and Sparks, 70s decor, long overdue for a refurbishment. Then I exit through the swing doors at the front and am back on the high street.

A parade is walking by in memory of the shooting. We gather by the side as the parade comes close. The parade occupies the width of the road and I want to take a photo but am not sure it is a good idea. Plus a very fat woman in grey track suit is in the front bearing down on us, and it won’t make for a good photo. Behind me I catch another bystander taking a photo so I turn back to the parade and snap one anyway.

The parade passes by me and at the end of the line is the coffin, white, close enough to touch, and held up by three men either side. I see only their hands grip the base and I feel my tears well up. But a black man comes up to me. I can’t tell whether he is about to threaten me.

“Yeah I know,” I say, but I don’t really know what to say and I start to cry. Another man dances past me, spiky Afro hair that springs as he moves.

“How’d he die? Did he get away before he fell?’ He asks to no one in particular.

And after the parade has gone by I cross the road; it marks the way home though I don’t recognize any of it. It has changed so much since I lived there.

I am lost but for an instant, when I see the Uxbridge Road. It is now a covered plaza, with sleek metal beams on the roof and on the road. It is a pedestrian only area, it looks nice, newly done; but it is still not clear where I am.

Looking in the other direction, there are more new buildings that I do not recognize. I turn the other way and around the north east corner, coming into view, is the old St. Peter’s church. That’s the way.

At least old buildings can’t be got rid of so easily. And can help you navigate the way.

Photo by Chad Davis via Flickr

April 26, 2022October 22, 2022

Business Trip Embedded in a Book

I was visiting a town in the Northeast for work.

When I was driving on a cobbled stone part of town, I decided to detour to the well known pier. I headed towards the entrance and recognized a woman from the hotel, saw her park outside, instead of driving onto the pier. Then she walked away from her car, a beige dress. She was middle aged, my age.

I too stopped in front of the pier, and fortuitously found a space opposite her car, a few yards from the entrance. Then I followed her to the kiosk to buy my ticket and stepped in to look at the exhibits.

“The Lord of the Admiralty was forced to decide to be promoted as part of the nascent US fleet or stick with the British. He resigned his post instead.” I read on the plaque of a tired display of personal belongings, next to a dummy showing his uniform and cap.

The woman had moved on from the display, and I too walked further along.

The pier was covered. In fact it resembled the hull of a boat. You could peer out of the sides, through portholes at the water down below. And from one porthole I saw a freshly dead deer, the back of its body, it’s tawny fur still glistening against the lap of the water.

How did it get down there? I wondered.

But when I stepped out from the covered part of the pier, I saw that the deer was actually alive, was standing on a sliver of rock and craning its neck out to catch chunks of bread that a group of tourists were throwing at it.

I sat down on a bench back in the covered side of the pier.

And a young woman with pale white skin and short cropped black punk hair, a black choker around her neck sat with me. We kissed briefly. I was conscious of my breath and pulled away reluctant to continue. Besides we had little in common.

It seemed that if you sat around long enough you would always meet someone.

After the young woman left I fell into a deep sleep against a setting sun and when I woke up I exclaimed, ”Wow! I have been asleep for hours!”

At first I calculated 8 hours and it felt great to have slept so long. But then I recalculated it at maybe 4; it was still great to have rested even that much.

I reopened my disheveled Sherlock Holmes book; or was this now my dream within my dream?

A woman next to me. Is she the same woman with the beige dress, who sits with her husband? She, also is reading Sherlock Holmes and is further along in her book than I am in mine.

“Which was the most difficult case to solve?” she challenged.

The story I was on was not so hard, but I couldn’t recall the most difficult. Truthfully I could not remember any of the tales well enough.

I brushed my teeth but was aware of having to hurry. The pier was already closing, my visit had been very worthwhile but now I needed to leave. There was no water to rinse my toothbrush. I looked at the toilet roll but there were only a few sheets left; plus I was concerned for its primary use right next to the toilet bowl! And on the sink I saw a fuller roll sitting there. I took a couple of sheets and wiped the brush with them carefully, making sure to clean the residue off the bristles.

Then I left for the hotel.

As I walked back and through the lobby, I saw the woman in the beige dress again. Maybe we could have a drink or some dinner.

Photo by Joe Shlabotnik via Flickr
Portrait by Charles Dana Gibson 1891 via Wikimedia Commons

April 21, 2022July 26, 2025

Duck is Nearly Run Over by a Bus

We found a duck.

He stood on our bench in the corner of the diner and looked eye level directly at me. He had small round bead eyes, a white semicircular bill and he stood tall on wide webbed feet.

The duck was very cute, was covered in what looked more like white fur than feathers. I wanted to pet him but I was afraid he might bite.

Caren Nicole gave me a white bath towel to protect my hand but though wary, I stroked the top of his head without using the towel. And when I held it up to him he bit into it, held the soft towel in his bill, while I continued to stroke him. It was to show me that he wouldn’t bite.

“We got to get him out of here,” I said, so we we left the diner and he followed us out into the park.

At first I did not think he would follow us, but when we coaxed him he kept up. We passed a group of people having a cook out on a park bench and Caren Nicole cried out, ”God I can’t stand that.” She pointed out one of the guys, “acting all happy when he’s always mean at work!”

We continued through the park until we hit the road that we would have to cross. And we were crossing at the roundabout with the duck slightly ahead of us when a red double decker drove into our path.

The bus driver could not see the duck and we cried out, ”Noooo…! Mind the duck!”

The duck panicked, got confused and the bus driver span her steering wheel around to avoid him, only to spin the bus round in circles instead. And the duck tried to turn back but the bus was now in the way and hid him from view. I watched as the duck twisted his foot, slow motion, as the tire drove over it.

“No!” I cried in pain.

Then the bus drove on, with the duck left standing, startled, in the middle of the road. He had a tire mark, a streak, across the grey webbing of his right foot; otherwise he was unharmed.

“Thank God!” I said.

We brought the duck back to the pavement and put him in a kid sized Radio Flyer wagon. You could see immediately, he was happier there.

“I think my kids’ Jewish kindergarten will take him,” suggested Caren Nicole, so we started out for their school, pulled the wagon along, with the duck stood up straight in the back.

Once we arrived, we had to take him up three big concrete steps to the entrance. At the top, the door was open and I could see a long brightly lit hallway. Soft, yellow lighting, it looked inviting and it made me hopeful that they would take him.

I announced to the duck, “Hold on… we got to go up some steps.” Then I tilted the wagon so that we could get him up.

As we climbed, I sang ”bumpity, bumpity, bump!” and the wagon bumped up each step, until we reached a black childproof gate at the top. But before we could open the gate a boy, dropped off by his father, bounded up the steps, and pushed past us.

Perhaps we could follow him in, I thought.

Photo by Maren Winter via Wikimedia Commons

April 14, 2022July 31, 2025

How to Avoid Terrorists

When I got into the elevator at the Castleton, others piled in too. We were stuffed side by side when the doors closed but then the elevator started to shake, then tip, then free fall.

I was standing on top of others so it would be ok; I would be cushioned once we hit the bottom. And the fall was quite slow, the side of the elevator scraping metal against the walls of the elevator shaft.