The Pure Life of Dreams

April 11, 2025April 11, 2025

Argentinian Alice with the Thick Hair

Siobhan and I stood in the center of the room and looked around. Behind us there was a woman in a yellow dress. She was a local, an Argentine, and when I looked back at her again, I saw that her pubic area was naked and was covered with thick black cotton balls that hid her vagina. The shape of that cotton ball hair was a little off from a regular isosceles triangle because the right side was slightly longer than the left.

Through the door and along one side of the next room, up on bleacher steps, in a corner, sat two couples, one couple on the next step up from the other. The women were pressed against the wall by their men who sat facing them. The couples were naked, and obese, and their blanched flesh hung loose around them, while the man of each couple buried his head in the folds of flesh on the chest of his partner.

(At first I thought the two people against the wall were women but so obese they were I could not be sure – fat pasty white skin dripped from all four people and disguised the shape of each person’s sex.)

When the man on the top step pulled away from his mate I saw a necklace with a thin gold strap and green pendant hung around her neck. He must have been sucking on the pendant, I thought.

Of course Siobhan wasn’t having any of this.

She wandered off into the next room and I would follow soon after. The woman in the yellow dress, would follow with me. I learnt that her name was Alice.

It became clear to me that we should indulge these locals, pay them a few pesos but with Siobhan around, payment would be unlikely. I lost track of her after the next room and had to use the locator app on my iPhone to find out where she’d gone.

The next area was outdoors, but it seemed that Siobhan had disappeared to the main enclosure where there lay a circle of prehistoric stones. I hurried through to find her but was sidetracked once more by a room off to one side, where there were gathered more prostitutes.

As I walked in I thought that we should be offering money to them too, for their nakedness.

This time I wanted to broach one of the women. I walked along the corridor, and it was lined with bamboo walls and bamboo benches on either side. Couples sat on the benches and wrapped their arms around each others’ naked bodies – men indulging in local women this time, for sure.

I returned to the main room and stepped into the enclosure where the stone circle lay, but Siobhan had already moved along. I hurried under a stone arch at the far end of the enclosure, and went through to the next area, where there were trees covered with black monkeys who sat on the branches and looked mischievously down at me.

At first I wondered whether to put away my phone in case the monkeys would steal it, but instead I took a picture.

To one side of a tree was Siobhan, in a grove to the left of the entrance. She was surrounded by the monkeys. I raised my camera and took a picture which perfectly framed her, and the monkeys around her, and the tree with its snaking branches.

As I turned away from Siobhan, she cried out, “Take a picture of me!”

“I already did.” I replied. “A perfect one.”

Picture by Modigliani uploaded by Benoît Prieur to WikiMedia Commons.

June 21, 2024June 21, 2024

The Lion and the Store Full Of Tchotchkes

All the other mini-creatures had been killed and only two remained.

They had to be taken out of the freezer and once they had thawed the mammoth was quite easy to kill but the lion was a different story.

I sat in the back garden, the other side of the walled-in patio and I held the lion within a large Manila envelope that I folded in the middle. His wings were tucked into the pocket either side, and to stop him from biting me I pinched his body to stop him from wriggling away.

The lion could be quite vicious. As he thawed, he expanded and he would nip your fingers right off if he could get to you. I had to tear off his wings but even I sliced the envelope down the left side with my knife he tried to snap and paw – before his left wing was torn right off.

He was still trying to get at me when it was explained that I’d have to do the other side as well, but it was only on my third attempt that I succeeded to tear off his other wing. The lion was then like an insect without its wings held in the remains of the envelope, his head poking out with his lion’s mane and teeth still bared.

I am navigating the antique and tchotchke store after the ~~graduation~~ event.

I couldn’t find a place to lie down so I had gone into the store instead and was wandering around.

Charlie James is there, being berated by a woman because he’s not following her, even though there are goods for sale in his way. I thought she was his wife at first.

And just like Charlie, I too am unable to move. Two tables, both with yellow glass trays, are positioned next to the wall and they are pressed close together in front of me. Every time I try to separate the two tables to get between them, little glass figurines or vases on the trays tinkle like they are about to fall over. So I have to stop.

I look back at the woman and she returns my stare before stepping out of the shop. She looks familiar, like Kim Spencer perhaps, only she has brown eyes.

And through the shop window, a reflection in a mirror for sale, I see Charlie follow the woman out, they are walking along the sidewalk. Charlie follows her on tip toe like a cat burglar, his arms cartoon-raised, two threatening silhouetted arcs, over her head.

The woman wears a delicate white dress that Kim wouldn’t normally wear.

Then I push past the tables into a new space.

Danny Fiere is there. “I heard you retired. I can’t believe you do nothing, but we’ve got something for you if you want,” he says.

I look back at Ned for support but Danny continues, “It’s programming.”

“Programming.” I reply. “It’s the one thing I loved. That could possibly persuade me, part time anyway, out of retirement”.

Photo by Downtown Gal via Wikimedia Commons.

May 17, 2024July 8, 2024

The Pain of Things Left Unsaid

It was my last day in Hong Kong and I hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye to Dee.

We’d only met up once during my visit and I was doing my final walk back up the shoreline path in Lamma. Lamma, with its narrow paths and hustling stalls on either side.

Hopefully I would see Dee on my way.

People, many people were pushing past me as I climbed the path. I knew not where else to go, though I knew that Dee’s house was somewhere off to the right at the end of the path, somewhere after the path split into two.

At the fork, the right turn followed the shore, the left went into the forest, but I reckoned I’d have to turn around before then, to head back to the pier. Any later and I would miss the ferry back to Central.

Further down the path I’d left one of the restaurants and was pushing past people up the hill when, as luck would have it, I saw Dee coming down towards me. She was with a girl.

Dee saw me as she approached. She was wearing a formal pale green frock with pleated skirt. Her hair was short bob blonde.

Once she was near I spoke, “I’m leaving Hong Kong today.”

Her friend carried on down the path to give us some space to talk.

“Oh,” Dee replied, and we hugged.

Her skin was pale, her shoulders rounded and plumper than I remembered, against the pale green straps of the dress.

We embraced and my face was close to her ear. I wanted to say, “I love you,” but her friend was still in earshot and I was afraid.

I thought I would say it just as we were parting, but before I could spit it out, suddenly Dee said goodbye and turned away.

Instead I continued up the hill, following the line of the shore, knowing that I’d missed the chance and that it was gone forever unless I double backed and caught up with her; unless I caught up to wherever she was going.

I was still kicking myself as I approached the fork.

The stalls either side of the path had thinned out.

A couple of lads were walking towards me and one of them made a joke about the other. I caught the joke and tittered as I passed them, and then the first one, the joker, said, “You think that’s funny?”

“No,” I replied, even though I thought it was. Yes, I’d got the joke even though I hoped he hadn’t realized it.

His friend squared up to me and began to push me, and so did the joker. So I pushed the friend backwards until he stumbled and fell hard onto the path.

The joker was harder to deal with, and only when I pushed him against the low cut wall that separated the shore from the path did he fall. He fell over the wall onto the pebbly beach below, and when I looked over the wall to make sure he was OK, all I could see was that he was riled up.

The joker stormed back up the stairs to the path and squared up to me again.

His friend was still lying groggy on the path.

This time I used the joker’s momentum. He ran at me and instead of pushing him away I deflected his force and projected him over the wall good and proper.

By this time the joker’s friend was coming to – just as the joker fell head first over the wall. The joker’s arms and legs were splayed apart as he landed.

I wasn’t afraid of his friend – instead his friend looked over the wall at the joker with me, but the joker looked like he was out cold this time. He looked unlikely to get up any time soon.

Photo by Judy Gallagher via Flickr.

May 10, 2024June 9, 2024

A Christmas Name in Lights

In the village where my sister lives there is a grey stone church on a hill.

The church overlooks the village even though it is low to the ground. I think to look at it one evening, as the light begins to fade.

The church is lit up on all sides with Christmas stalls that shine in bright yellow winter colours, but the highlight for me is the ~~steeple~~ bell tower where Lizzie’s name is in lights. Her name is spelled out in full, Lizzie Monroe, along the length of the tower. I am surprised but also proud to see my sister’s name carved out in yellow neon, prominent, at the highest point of the village.

The only other place where I saw her name was on theatre posters online.

Here, Lizzie’s name is double lit with big yellow baubles like you see in an actor’s backstage dressing room. She must be important in the village, I think.

I’m going to take a picture but instead I walk around the church to look at the stalls, at the yellow christmasy decorations, at the steam of glühwein and red cheeked shopkeepers rubbing their gloves to keep warm.

When I return to the front of the church the bell tower lights have been turned off and some townspeople are in the process of dismantling them. They have brought Lizzie’s name down onto the grass and the neon letters are no longer lit.

“Before you completely take it apart can I take picture?” I ask them. “For my 101 year old mother.”

Two large women in dark blue anoraks are almost silhouetted against the dusk. They stand up the two sections side by side. There is one section for Lizzie’s first name, another for her surname. The sections are unlit but you can still make out the names from the shape of the neon.

I take the picture. Even though I can make out the name, I’m disappointed that they’re not lit. Christmas is closing up, I realize, so I decide to walk around the church again before it’s completely gone.

But when I return to the other side of the church I see that it’s still brightly lit with the yellow tinsel shops that line the church so I take more pictures as I walk, one last time, along its length.

Why is Lizzie my sister? Surely we’re talking about Elaine? Or are we talking about me? Am I all three – Lizzie, Elaine as well as myself?
Photo courtesy of PxHere.

March 28, 2024June 7, 2024

Visiting the Japanese Mafia for One Last Time

Painting by Ellen Marcus. Copyright Ellen Marcus, reprinted by permission

I went there with Micky and we walked along the balcony corridor of the motel, pool-side, until we found the room. When we knocked and entered, on a large bed, there sat the Japanese man we were to visit.