The Pure Life of Dreams

November 18, 2022April 18, 2024

Gluten Free Pizza and Other Light Quandaries

I had returned home to my old office in New Malden.

We went for lunch across the street because I was told that there was a place that did great gluten free pizza. So we got in line and ordered a small pizza, which Mr Thanh, whose shop had been there for many years, served by splashing it out on the table.

July 21, 2022February 1, 2023

Reunion with an Ex is High Risk

I am on a wooden boat at night. Siobhan and I have a cabin. And I am on the lower deck trying to clean up with the leaf blower. At first it will not work, but I remember that once I add the attachment it won’t overheat; only then will it start to do the job.

Once I’ve cleared the deck of pine needles, I go to the toilet. It is on the same level and the deck, an open plan space, has the toilet starboard side. At first I was going to sit down like I normally do, but Zach was there watching, so I stood and peed into the bowl instead.

He sits up high, looks down at me from his step ladder, not three yards away.

“Strange that they put all these vegetables around the toilet,” I say to him, as I survey the baskets of onions and potatoes that surround the bowl. ”It must be to hide the toilet.”

When done I go outside to look at the night sky. Karin is on the boat, I know, and I wonder how I will bump into her.

I could just knock on her door, directly. Or I could hang around until she comes out and we pass each other in the walkway. I will turn around as she passes by and will exclaim, “Karin!” Then we will look at each other, our older faces beginning to recognize each other. Despite my balding spot.

Karin is in room 23, I am sure of it and I could just knock.

I look out onto a black sea and there are fabulous waves, blue and white tipped against the moon. With strange creature patterns big enough to engulf the boat, they are meters high, with tentacles and tendrils.

“The boat sails smoothly, but how is it gliding so smooth?”

And the captain tells me, ”We’re on the canal alongside the sea so that we avoid the waves. That’s how come we are able to go so smoothly along. Otherwise the boat would get tossed around and we could drown.”

I see the brick barrier that separates us, it runs parallel to the shore but I want to be out there in the waves instead.

“Where are we?” I say. I think it is Africa, that we are coming down the south east coastline. And he tells me yes, but the country begins with an R, it’s a country I won’t recognize.

“Later, when we’re all sleeping we will join up with the sea and the waves, when they’ve died down a bit,” he says.

Ship of Fools, cropped, accredited to Hieronymus Bosch via Picryl

July 14, 2022July 26, 2025

Bad Hot Dogs and a New Route to a Lost Car

We were just coming back from a football match in Manchester and I was trying to find the car.

To get to the match we had to walk a lot. Liam had brought a friend but even so, we were going to arrive very early. Nobody else was even making their way. And we were lost cutting through a suburban estate.

Middle class, wide roads curved left and right, sided by red brick houses and manicured lawns. It wasn’t very exciting.

I told the boys to hang back, ”We don’t want to get there so early”, but they went on ahead.

And when eventually we did get close to the stadium, only a few stalls were opening up for food.

I wanted hot dogs but the woman gave me a palm-sized Saran wrapped banana leaf that contained the dog inside. I wanted the greasy kind. Still she told me, ”There are seven layers of leaf so you peel them to get to each bite”.

I ate it in one go and went looking for another.

The next stall I found also had bad hot dogs; this time the greasy kind and that’s what I wanted.

“Give me the sandwich bread,” I said pointing at a line of cut pieces of baguette. And the man landed the dog onto a baguette slice like I asked.

Returning from the match, Liam and his friend walked off to do their own thing, and Siobhan and Lizzie joined me to go look for the car.

I’d had to move it because a traffic warden told me that, though legally parked, they were towing the area anyway. I had moved it but I couldn’t remember where.

We tried an area in front of an abandoned field that was surrounded by a wire fence. Overgrown uncut grass. Siobhan and Lizzie tried the red brick lane adjacent and together we tried the place where I had originally parked, but there were no cars left.

We even wandered the streets where no cars could drive, where there were only narrow walkways with cute white Greek houses decorated with bougainvillea.

Some one told me Shawn from work lives there, pointing down a side street lined with olive trees and flower boxes. That’s certainly nice, I thought. I was surprised he could afford it.

Then we stepped back out onto the roads and kept walking, until we were further from the city center. Until, finally, I recognized a street, Queen’s Parade, which curved to the right, townhouses on one side, the park on the other. Just before the road curved leftwards once more, I recognized our car so we hurried past the other silver SUVs. Until we were close enough to see the decals on the back of our own Highlander.

When we got there I saw the tyres curbside had been punctured, as if someone had stabbed each tyre, the rubber crunched between road and hub cap. Sitting in the car with the convertible top down were three Chinese girls. One sat on the drivers headrest, her toes up on the steering wheel; she was reading a magazine. The other two were in the back.

“What are you doing? I’m going to calls the cops.” I said. And we had a little argument, clipped teenager tones between them, before they agreed to mend the tyres. Their mechanic came by, his feet bare and swollen like balloons, but he unscrewed the tyres and rolled them away and the girl in charge said he’ll be back at seven.

As they were leaving a parking attendant reassured us it would be OK, and we walked back the way we had come while the girl went off with the mechanic. Then it struck me that I had not got a cell phone number so I caught up with the attendant to ask her. She knelt on the pavement and started writing.

“I‘ll give the number of both the mechanic and of the girl. Though I suspect the number I have is for a burner phone and she’ll have changed it by now,” she laughed.

Photo of hot dog stand by cjuneau and of Naxos village by Marko Verch both via Flickr

January 12, 2022October 22, 2022

Cheese Plates in the Conference Room, Now!

There is an announcement coming down from the CEO and we need to meet at conference room PS1 in a few minutes. Where is that?

I need to get some nicer clothes. I struggle to take off my socks. They are black but ripped and I cannot find any others. So I struggle them back on again. Then a shirt. In my wardrobe there are a few shirts but all are wrong for one or other reason. Once I’ve flicked through each shirt I settle on purple with hideous white stripes on the lining.

Now I need a jacket to cover the shirt and so I continue through the hangers. One I grew out of, the other is, No! The last is brown, bland, it will do. And I am ready.

October 11, 2021October 22, 2022

Supermarket Eggs and an Ex

At the supermarket buying eggs.

I’m walking around with a girl I used to go out with. She has long black hair, greasy or unwashed I am not sure which, but I do not recognize her and besides, she’s in her twenties; she has a new boyfriend now.