The Pure Life of Dreams

December 29, 2022December 30, 2022

Teleportation in Hyderabad

I was in the airport in Hyderabad. I ate a full meal, their famous biryani, but Siobhan didn’t join me. She was right that it was unwise as I suddenly had a need to go to the toilet. Only I had to find it first.

“Hurry up,” she said as I left the line waiting to get on the plane.

December 8, 2022March 9, 2023

Throwing Sandwiches Doesn’t Do Any Good

I was sitting with Georgie when it was time to go. This was after cleaning up the avocado sandwich that I threw at the wall.

We were seated in deck chairs outside, in a garden with fake grass, and I had made the sandwich earlier with the only ingredients I could find. A piece of white bread, a thick slice of pâté, cut, but placed in one solid chunk on the bread. Then the avocado buttered on top.

October 5, 2022September 1, 2024

Designers on the Top of a Brownstone

We are on the top floor of a brownstone that FG has bought and an interior designer is around to measure curtains on the front wall. The thing is, there is only the front wall. And apart from half of an adjacent wall the remaining sides are just bare rooftop sky, exposed to the elements.

May 24, 2022October 22, 2022

Spies in a Bunker in Prague

I am in Budapest, only it does not look like Budapest because I have been there; so maybe I am in Prague because I have not been there.

I am in a deserted apartment, more like a bunker, but real high up, above the cityscape. And even though the bunker has only two main rooms, the rooms have strange angles and steps up to the lookout posts. Like a bunker the rooms have grey white walls and the windows are glassless but have metal grills.

The spies were just with me, a man and woman drinking whisky from crystal glasses. They poured it from a pear shaped decanter with a glass stopper.

And once they left, they put the glasses on a mantelpiece.

Then an agent came through the door and said, “They were here weren’t they?” But I didn’t answer and he went room to room looking for evidence.

There was nothing in the rooms but he found the decanter and holding it by the neck said, “Yes, the evidence is here,” He lifted it up for me to see.

“You should have worn gloves then,” I pointed out, “as you’ve just destroyed the evidence.”

I thought he was an idiot but he left with the decanter, and the couple returned.

Through curlicue bars on the windows I am trying to point my camera at the view of the city, the way the buildings slope down below me and then back up the other side of the valley high up above.

At the bottom of the valley is a nest of residential houses tightly packed, but in front are ugly white warehouses and I’m trying to angle the camera to avoid the warehouses and focus on the houses, with the remaining buildings on the opposite slope as a background. I would do a panoramic shot, except the bars would show up fuzzy in the foreground.

We walk outside and down to a balcony in front of the bunker.

“You have to see the nightly spectacle,” the woman tells me. Sure enough, a huge aircraft with multiple stories, like a space ship, five layers of oval windows pinpricks of light on black walls, comes up from the right side of the valley, against the dusky sky. Up over the balcony it flies, slowly, mere meters away, angled torchlights scanning the valley. It is followed by a white F-2, a familiar pointed nose. The plane slow rolls for show, and then is followed by the chopping sound of a Chinook.

“The city has this every night!” the man says.

I want to get a better photo and follow the couple alongside a stream that curves through the balcony. A black iron grinder crosses the stream and the man goes first, the woman hangs back. He steps onto the girder but then changes his mind and steps into the water. Ankle deep in clear water, he sploshes over to the other side.

I follow but want to stay on the girder, so I step gingerly onto it.

The girder is shiny, and I want to keep going, but it is slippery and I don’t want to look like a fool in front of the planes and the crowds watching.

Photo from Piqsels

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