The Pure Life of Dreams

September 22, 2025September 22, 2025

Jobs and War in the Middle East

I woke up in Kabul. I lay by the side of the road with a hangover, and a fat woman dressed head to toe in black hustled past me. The smells were of the Middle East. The noises were of the Middle East. I had not expected that.

But I had wanted something else.

I had calculated three years in Hong Kong, three years in the States, so now it was time to move on. But I had not expected Afghanistan.

No wait. It had been twenty-five years in the States. Really? Definitely time to move on.

I shifted my body onto the sidewalk and off the road. I recognized the whitewashed walls of mud brick houses. Bric-a-brac stalls pressed up against the houses, shopkeepers selling this and that, selling anything really.

Two or three years in Kabul would be okay, wouldn’t it?

In one corner sat two tables positioned side by side to form an L. Expats were pushing their way to the tables. Grizzled westerners looking for jobs. On the tables were pieces of paper where the applicants wrote their names. Each pile had a different kind of job.

Lawyer? I was not that. Teacher? Not that either, though I could always teach English. I looked at the next table over, to see if there was a better match.

No use for a computer guy.

A man in a sand-colored flak jacket stood next to me. He had a dirty blonde tousled hair look and was unshaven.

Experienced driver? I could do that.

‘Can you fix your own car?’ asked a man behind the table.

‘No.’

‘Can you drive four-wheel drive?’

‘No.’ But I could pretend. ‘I can drive stick. I drove from New York down to Florida once. Make it Maine down to Florida.’

I hesitated. ‘Well, it was only Washington not Florida, but it was a bloody long way.’

So yeah, there was a skill that I picked up in the US after all.

‘What about a Kalashnikov?’ He asked. ‘Can you operate one?’

‘No, but the man in the flak jacket can.’ I pointed at the man with the tousled hair. ‘We’d make great buddies, him being from England, so we can go on about football as we drive across the plain towards the Hindu Kush.’

I pictured us driving an open top Jeep with the guns in the back in case the Taliban spilled out from behind some hills. Yes, this was a skill they could use.

Photo of AK47s via Picryl.

September 14, 2025September 15, 2025

A Party for High School Girls and Boys, a Bath and a Boat

The party for high school girls and boys was up some stairs in a hall on the island but when we arrived there we were already late; somebody had hung a wooden sign from the lintel ‘No Boys’ with an ‘X’ underneath. Presumably girls were still allowed and they were trying to stick to a quota.

September 5, 2025September 5, 2025

When You Start To Feel Something

We were to sleep on a thin mattress in the living room of the one bedroom flat. Thin net curtains dimmed the last rays of the sun.

‘When you start to feel something, then jump up and down. It will be good for the full effect,’ said the dealer.

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 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.