Eccentric Exhibits

Another dream, another zoo. I was with family again and it was late in the day with a couple of hours before closing. The zoo held a lot of promise and I remember feeling excited to be there. Entering an indoor exhibition hall with a rainforest theme, I found a spacious chimpanzee enclosure with a family unit inside. They seemed in better health than the ones described in 'Babylonian Zoo' and the babies were swinging back and forth on tyre swings. There was also an aquarium divided into separate tanks containing various fish including a giant freshwater stingray, a sawfish, and a weird crustacean-type thing with a ring of serrated teeth.

Suddenly the enclosures merged together to allow all the animals access to one another. I watched as the sawfish scurried through the water, making a beeline for the toothy crustacean. The sawfish's first few attempts to eat it were unsuccessful, repelled by the spines/teeth. Eventually, by using its saw, it dislodged the critter from its anchorage in the sand and flipped it sideways into its mouth. I heard the crunching through the glass. Meanwhile. the chimps kicked up a riot in their waterlogged enclosure, climbing higher up the artificial trees and hanging ropes.

In the second part of the dream I was on campus again, taking a walk by the lakes on my lunch break. It was a brisk, Autumn afternoon before October term and some construction was underway for the new intake of freshers. I noticed that a cave had been dug near the lakes, with a path sloping into it and a maintenance man on his hands and knees doing some welding. Looking past him into the subterranean passage, I saw a glass-fronted terrarium with a long snake, a boa constrictor, draped over a tree branch inside. A gold plated sign outside read that it was the 50 year old 'SU Snake' to commemorate the university's 50th birthday. The campus zoo continues to grow.

University Murders

The University of Essex has often been a threatening place in my dreams, churning out such horrors as a pink lady ghost with hooves for feet, and a headless woman in a tree by the lakes. The most recent disturbing dream featuring campus as a backdrop took place during a bad thunderstorm and was inspired by the real university murders. It was a muggy, summer's evening and I was waiting outside the SU in square 3 for Li to leave her office.

 

Due to  the lateness of the hour, it was already dark, but there was still a large number of students around for clubbing. A blinding flash of white light lit up the squares, swiftly followed by a bone jarring peal of thunder. Forks of lightning speared the purple sky, like witch's fingernails clawing the atmosphere. I took shelter in the entrance of the SU, watching as students ran this way and that to escape the sudden downpour of rain.

 

By the time Li joined me, the squares were awash with puddles. We needed to get to the car park, so we held hands and made a run for it, lightning flashing overhead. A depression in the path near the lecture theatre had filled up with a muddy puddle, too far to jump over and impossible to circumvent. I was wearing my best two toned brogues and knew that wading through the mud would irreparably ruin them. Unfortunately, the other route to the car park was likewise blocked, so we were left with no choice.

 

I took a running jump and landed in the middle of the mire. The mud oozed up my thighs, deeper than I had imagined. After much heaving, I managed to pull myself out by clutching strands of grass on a nearby bank. I told Li to join me on the grassy slope, and paused beneath a tree to wait for her to catch up. As she struggled through the mud, I noticed a trainer dangling from the branches of the tree, then a foot, and the leg it was attached to.

 

Next thing I knew, a whole body had fallen on top of me from the tree, a woman. Her cold legs were wrapped around my neck, in a similar fashion to what happened to me on the rapids at Centre Parcs. Blood trickled onto my shirt, mingling with the mud. With a horrified squeal, I trashed about to untangle her and managed to throw her off her. She slumped onto the grass where she lay with marbled, shocked eyes - bleeding from multiple stab wounds.

 

Li caught up and I pointed out the body out to her, at which point we noticed other corpses in trees around the sports centre grounds. It appeared that there had been a massacre of students and the killer had clumsily attempted to hide them out of sight. The instinct of terror overcame us, and forgetting all about our ruined clothing, we made a mad dash for the car park, screaming all the way.

Antediluvian Nightmare

For quite some time now I've been dreaming about hippos living in the lake on campus. This is likely due to a combination of the following factors:

a) The upcoming dissertation on zoos
b) Ongoing re-development at the lakes
c) Wishful thinking (hippos are my favourite animals)

In this latest dream, plans were being set forth for a small zoo on campus to push the site as a 'green space' and therefore make it more attractive to international students. My MA supervisor and I were unhappy with the scheme, believing it would compromise the animals' welfare and pose a danger to students. It wasn't just hippos they were planning on bringing in, there was already a very large Nile crocodile floating around, with later plans for introducing polar bears. As outlandish as this combination seems, these species are frequently thrown together in my dreams.

I went down to the muddy borders of the lake to make a preliminary inspection as part of the Wild Writing team, intending to write it up as a habitat management plan. An iron railing had been erected around the perimeter, over which I watched the lone crocodile motionless in the water. Only its ridged back and top of the head showed on the surface. A big green specimen some 9 feet in length, it was more than capable of making short work of anyone foolish enough to go for a swim. The hippos, along with some extra crocodiles, were later delivered, and I returned the following day to see them.

Highly territorial creatures, the hippos were clearly distressed by their new surroundings and were not at all happy to be sharing it with their reptilian neighbours and natural sworn enemies. Fighting for space, caked in mud, and catching all manner of local diseases, it was like witnessing a scene from primordial times; a heaving, churning mass of savage water behemoths battling for supremacy and survival. The watercolour 'Duria Antiquior' by Henry De la Beche came to mind, as it frequently does when presented with the raw, 'red in tooth and claw' aspects of nature.

After witnessing this distressing sight and discovering that the plans for polar bears were still going ahead, I wiped my hands of the project and decided to write a damning critique instead. I also began researching reintroduction sites in Africa for when the ludicrous campus zoo came to its inevitable end. The theme of animals being squashed together in unsanitary, claustrophobic environments features an awful lot in my unconscious and is a constant source of inspiration for creative works.

Babylonian Zoo

Since I was born, I've been having dreams about dilapidated zoos. To my infant mind, the zoo was a veritable paradise filled with strange and exciting creatures from the far flung corners of the globe. Going to the zoo was the ultimate buzz (and still is if I'm honest) but concerns about animal welfare came secondary to the thrill of seeing them in the flesh.

Over the years, and more recently after a tour of zoos in China, my stance has started to change. Today I will begin writing a 20,000 word dissertation on the topic, tentatively titled: 'Degenerative Fascination - The Enduring Allure of Zoos and Aquaria in Contemporary Culture.' Despite questioning their necessity in today's world, zoos have continued to exude their influence over me, a power that simultaneously fascinates and disturbs.

Last night I had another of my zoo related dreams, this time set in China. It was a Babylonian themed super park featuring all manner of attractions and the largest of its kind in the world, covering hundreds of acres. There were rides, hotels, bars, casinos, and shopping arcades all built with ostentatious Babylonian inspired architecture, palm trees, and sparkling water courses. As is often the case, although boasting a dazzling facade, conditions for the animals were squalid.

I walked through a grimy primate section with Li, peering at depressed chimpanzees through smeared perspex. The indoor sleeping quarters were tortuously cramped and the animals were covered in their own feces. One of the females birthed a premature, blob-like foetus resembling something out of a Lynchean dreamscape. The baby clung to some wire mesh, quivering convulsively. Next door, two glum orang-utans slumped listlessly in a corner, seemingly fed up with the world.

Roused by screams and growls, we moved on to the next exhibit where we saw with horror that an endangered bongo and her two calves were about to be fed to a pack of half starved African wild dogs. An overeager bitch wiggled through the adjoining barrier and clamped its jaws onto the antelope's upper eyelid in an attempt to bring her down. We watched the tussle with growing agitation, sick to the stomach.

Suddenly there was a rusty screech and a metal shutter was raised, letting in the blinding sunlight from outside. The bongo ripped free and bolted through the hatch, closely followed by her two calves. The rest of the wild dog pack were released a few seconds later and they tore after their prey onto an immense race track encircling the perimeter of the park. The roar of an engine kicked in, followed by the whooping of fat American cowboys who had paid to follow the chase in a jeep.

From a raised viewing terrace, we saw the sun glinting off the jeep's metal and a long cloud of brown dust billowing from behind. The cowboys were rich ranchers and entrepreneurs from Texas, hideously drunk and profligate in their excess. I shouted all manner of insults at them, but my words were lost by the roar of the chase. We didn't stay to watch the hunt to the end, but I did give Li a lecture on the European Animal Welfare Act.