Aquarium Floaters

A couple of nights ago I dreamt about a new acquaintance for the first time. I was in their home city, visiting a museum that had an aquarium of sorts (places are never fully what they are supposed to be in dreams) and I was having a dismal time. Not only was the city a grey, featureless metropolis, but the museum aquarium was rundown and leaking. In the main foyer, some of the larger fish were able to swim around near the ceiling, seemingly suspended in thin air. There were red coloured tub gurnards (Chelidonichthys lucerna), bulky, medium-sized fish bumbling along in loose shoals like miniature fighter planes. I steered clear of those, for I am a raging icthyophobe, and I remember reading somewhere that a flying gurnard can kill you if it smacks into your head.

My friend decided she wanted to catch some of the fish and guide them back to their tanks. To do so, she brought with her a large hoop surrounded by hanging strips that acted like baffle boards. Using a pole, she raised the hoop towards the shoal, trapping a few of the fish and sweeping them back towards an open tank. She then tried the same on a baby reef manta ray (Mobula alfredi) that was also gliding in circles near the ceiling. The ray, despite being a baby, was too large to contain in the baffle hoop, so she gave up and turned her attention to a small hammerhead shark. I told her that it was a scalloped hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini), as distinguished by the notch in the centre of its 'hammer.' She was likewise unsuccessful in trapping the shark, and we left the museum to go somewhere else.

Colchester Zoo Revisited

When I resided in Colchester, I was a regular visitor to their zoo, which is ranked highly in Europe. The Colchester Zoo of last night's dream would not even pass WAZA standards, let alone make it onto a leaderboard of any description. I was there with my friend, D, and one of his friends from Devon, with whom I was unacquainted. The first enclosure we encountered was a grimy, indoor compound of Lubetkin's Disinfectant Era legacy, a tiled compound with puddles of stagnant water and heaps of dirty hay. Inside were hippos of both species, common (hippopotamus amphibius) and pygmy (Choeropsis liberiensis). They could only be viewed by squatting in an uncomfortable position and peering through windows that looked as though they had not been washed in at least a decade. The common hippos were slumped in miserable heaps of flesh in the corner out of sight, snoozing their lives away. The pygmies were more active, but nonetheless lethargic in their movements as they monotonously munched straw.

Around the corner from the hippos was an old-fashioned Victorian cage resembling a giant bird cage with a ring on top, where an iron chain might be attached. The bird cage was made up of rusty iron bars with wide gaps between them, easily wide enough to admit an arm or a leg. Around the cave was a stone spiral staircase that led up and outside. Inside the cage there sprawled a number of resting ligers, the hybrid offspring of a lion and tiger. They were cramped into the tight space with barely room to turn around. Without a thought to his safety, D's friend put his arm through the bars and tried to stroke one of the beasts. I warned him to withdraw it immediately, which he fortunately did. We tramped up the staircase to an outdoor courtyard of more cages, though of larger dimensions that the oppressive liger cage. There seemed to be no clear indication as to how animals were being grouped.

One of the cages was all ugly wooden beams connected by rusty mesh through which the guests could view the animals. Inside were stunted Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) dragging their straw-ridden cloaks through the muck. Sharing the space with them was what an information sign claimed to be a dhole (Cuon alpinus), yet its hair was so matted and overgrown it could have been just about anything. A curious clacking sound attracted my companions over to another cage. I followed reluctantly, resigned to yet more squalid conditions. It was a bald ibis (Geronticus eremita) standing in a shallow pond and rattling its beak over and over. Its eyes were protruding and covered in a strange mesh of pulsing blue and pink veins. Eventually the ibis managed to dislodged one of these flaps of skin, pulling out the eyeball with it. which the ibis promptly swallowed. D's friend explained that the disease was caused by a 'crystallisation of unstable chromosomes.'

Window Skunks

Recently, new neighbours moved next door to me, yet besides a couple of conversations on the driveway, I have yet to get to know them properly. I dreamed that they had opened up an art appreciation society, with monthly gatherings at their home to discuss the woman's favourite artist, an impenetrable modernist from Los Angeles, who, to my shame, I pretended also to be a fan of to curry favour. Starved of intellectual conversation, I was desperate to be accepted into their inner circle, but unfortunately I drank too much wine and was unable to coherently converse about the artist at hand. I spent the afternoon embarrassing myself to the point where my imposter syndrome was laid bare for all to see. Feeling not a little sheepish, I retired next door to hang my head in shame.

For some obscure dream reason, my wife and I were also new homeowners in our house, and we explored the three stories of our new abode, discussing where our furniture would go. When we reached the second floor bedroom, we saw a large bay window with two panes of glass, forming a sort of lounge space within where one could sit on cushions, drink tea, read, and look down over the street. Just as I was about to draw back the inner window to check it out, I noticed a family of striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis) nesting in this alcove. My wife and I were excessively surprised, and remarked on how our daughter would react to this, but we were unwilling to slide back the glass and let them into the room. Upon noticing humans on the other side of the glass, the mother skunk began to talk.

"We need to leave babies! Come on, out, out, out, back through the way we came!" There was a metal grate over the outer window, yet the top left pane had come loose, and it was through this that the skunks now attempted to leave. "Please, don't leave on our account!" I told them as they attempted, one-by-one, to wriggle free. "It's a high drop to the pavement below," I continued, "you're liable to do yourselves an injury. Why not stay here until I call animal control, and they can help you get out." Although I could understand the skunks, they were incapable of recognising human speech, and my recommendations were given in vain.

The Neglected Horse

 Sometimes I dream about having to care for an animal I have no experience with, resulting in a series of disastrous husbandry blunders. A couple of weeks ago it was a horse, and whilst having some limited experience with horses when I was much younger, I had no clue what I was expected to do. Indeed, to begin with, I did not even know that I had a horse, much less was expected to take care of one. It was a fine summer's day and I was out in the country, my family and loved ones scattered here and there following their own leisure pursuits. A skinny nag, not unlike Don Quixote's long-suffering Rocinante, trotted over to me, a nosebag attached to its head. 'This is my horse' thought I, as I gingerly attempted to mount her. After a few false starts whereupon I fully expected to feel a swift hoof ploughing into my midriff, I managed to attain the saddle.

I took the horse along a country trail at a modest plod, trying to remember the riding lessons I had learned so long ago. When my confidence had increased slightly, I moved from a walk to a trot, but was unwilling to go any faster. My sisters came towards me on horses of their own, more experienced and fully enjoying a spirited canter. "Show offs..." I grumbled. I noticed that my steed was agitated and kept trying to veer off the track looking for food. I leaned over her neck and saw with dismay that the nose bag was zipped shut, meaning the horse had probably not fed for quite some time. I opened the bag to let the horse feed, which it promptly did, gulping down the expired food that had turned into an unappetising brown sludge at the bottom of the bag.

My next concern was where to stable the horse, and where to let her graze. As anyone from the country knows, every field, hedge, dike, and ditch is owned by some red-faced, land rover driving nincompoop, so you may imagine my consternation in allowing the horse to graze just anywhere. Thus overburdened with this dilemma, I remounted the horse and turned her back the way I had come, hoping to find someone to advise me in my predicament. This dream was no doubt born from the anxiety currently ruining an otherwise idyllic existence, namely that of undergoing weekly driving lessons and feeling my complete inadequacy in the enterprise.