Light Archives - The Pure Life of Dreams

April 27, 2023June 15, 2024

Lights Out for the Comfort of Strangers

Dawn after lights out in the comfort of strangers, when the birds start singing

I was in a dorm with four beds, arranged in a square, one bed in each corner of the room, lights out, and I was in one of the beds with Matthew’s wife. Matthew was an ex-workmate.

We were furthest from the window and I wasn’t sure why I was sleeping with her because in the other three beds lay married couples, or couples who were single but seeing each other.

It was just the luck of the draw or how the lots were drawn.

Photo from Wallpaper Flare

December 15, 2022June 7, 2024

How to Make Chi Flow in the Room

I am at the Tai Chi beginners class because I know that some of the advanced students will be there and I have forgotten the sequence to the sixth. I sit to the side as the class concludes.

Then as I leave, a man walks with me into an adjacent Victorian style room. The room is empty but sun filled. It has brilliant white walls, with white crown mouldings, tall open stash windows and pine wood flooring.

The man throws his hand back in a sweeping motion, over his head but I don’t recall that move.

I try to mimic him. “I don’t remember that anywhere.”

“Try it again,” he says, and again he throws his hands up carelessly and bends backwards, pushing forward his pelvis.

The class is fully wrapping up now and people are flooding into the room. I stand over to the side.

Some men, young and lithe in black bicycle pants and bronzed naked chests are being flirted with by the women.

I see a different woman through the crowd, her back to me. Her skin is pale on a silk ivory dress with thin shoulder straps. Her legs are thick and also the color of ivory. I prefer her coloring, though I confess I am a little jealous of the ripped bodies of the younger men and women.

Then another woman in a simple white dress and wavy blonde hair enters through the doorway. She is being toasted for her presentation. She has been somewhere exotic and has just gotten back.

“I had to do that because they wouldn’t let me go on to Guatemala,” she says to the crowd.

The projector shines her slides up on to a white screen at the front of the room. It shows an architectural drawing with lines and points mapping the intersections of buildings of what may be an archaeological dig. I want to call out to her that I’ve been to Guatemala but it was so long ago and it would sound pompous.

Instead she comes towards me. She stands to my left against the window while the others in front admire her presentation.

I am aware of her presence, the whiteness of her plain cotton dress lit by the sun, her white skin. The blonde waves of her hair frames and partially hides her face as she tilts her head forward.

She holds up her right hand directly in front of her, as if to reach out to something. I reach out too, brushing the palm of my own right hand across the back of her hand. Suddenly I am overcome with a fear that my palm might be clammy, but she turns to me at a slight angle, her face still in shadow from her hair.

In the shade, I can feel her breath on mine as our lips part slightly to meet.

Leaves and Insects series by Qi Baishi, via WikiMedia Commons.
The name of the Yang Style 108 movement is Retreat to Ride the Tiger.

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.

April 9, 2022June 7, 2024

Browsing Bric-a-Brac Stalls on an Old Market Day

I am walking up a hill, a sunlit morning with an old market day feel. I pass by stalls with a variety of wares laid out when I am I stopped by a seller with brown leather hat and neck strap, auburn hair waved across wide shoulders, a hardy weather beaten face. She wears a thick white shirt with sleeves rolled up to her elbows revealing sunburnt arms, faded blue tattoos.

She admires my watch. Can I see that? she asks, and I take it off so that she can get a closer look.

November 11, 2021December 9, 2022

The Light in the Attic

Siobhan comes to bed. Turn off the music, she says. I am half asleep but I reach over and hit the mute button.

“Do I have to do it?!” She sounds annoyed, as she comes round to my side of the bed.

“I did it already!” I reply.

Later on, I am fully asleep when she reaches over, gently touches my arm.

“What is the time?” she asks. But I am asleep. She reaches further over.

“Ngghh,” I mutter and I push out at her. “Why you waking me?” And I push her more.

“Don’t fight me,” she exclaims, “I am not a ghost!”