We all had a terrible night's sleep last night due to Lucinda crying and being unsettled. When I finally did doze off around 2am, I had some busy dreams, the majority of which I've now forgotten. Belugas featured again. I was with my family at a zoo that resembled the indoor African zone at Colchester Zoo, but it was more of an aquarium. Instead of the cafe area with benches on a balcony overlooking the plains animals, there was a metal staircase leading up to an open air tank.
I ascended the staircase and saw a Chinese man balancing on the head of a giant beluga. He was performing to a small crowd of people standing around the tank. I called Lulu up to see, and I remember being terrified that she would fall into the tank and either drown or be eaten by the beluga. I took her hand and waited for the whale to surface, but when it did, its head resembled a mutant creature, with a bony carapace and clicking mandibles. I pulled Lulu away from it in revulsion.
In the next part of the dream, I was at Heartbreak Hotel with my friends Drew and Kate. I had a pet micro lion, a toy animal model that had come alive and needed looking after. I was in the process of cleaning out its habitat, which was a swathe of savanna grass and tiny acacia trees attached to a wooden board in the manner of a model railway diorama. Its food and bedding needed replacing, and the only place I could procure these from was Essex University. Drew told me the supplies were in the SU storeroom, but to get the key I would first need another key from the security office. I told him it sounded like a video game quest.
The afternoon was getting on but I decided to make the trip so the lion could have food and clean straw for the night. Drew agreed that this was a good idea since the lion was in its 'primal stage' and would stand to benefit from stats boosts. Perhaps it was like a Tamagotchi with levelling up capabilities. My friends came onto the driveway to see me off, and as I cycled away Kate shouted, "Looks like you are the leader after all!" I didn't understand her comment, so I just waved my hand dismissively.
It was my first time cycling in several years, and my old bike was stiff with rust and disuse. My balance was also off, and I wobbled to and fro as I tried to stay on my side of the road. The road between Wivenhoe and the university had become unrecognisable. The cycle path was gone, the familiar trees had been cut down and new ones planted, the left turn from Colchester Road onto Boundary Road was no longer there. There were also wooded hills in the distance across the fields, reminding me of when I cycled in Chengdu.
Disorientated and confused, I stopped to ask a construction worker in a high viz jacket for directions to campus. "Straight across the road, up the stairs, or access ramp with your bike, down the other side, turn right, then left, second exit at the junction, double back on yourself and you'll loop round and enter from the south side. You can't miss it." As is always the case when directions are too complicated, I pretended to understand and thanked him for his help.
I walked my bike across the dual carriageway, noticing how light the traffic was. It was the dead weeks before term started, and none of the students were around. I reached the other side, arriving at the bottom of a steep covered stairway and ramp, just as it started to rain. I noticed that some facilities had been built here, so I decided to quickly check them out. It was a small shopping village for students, with brand new businesses. I entered a building called 'Well Bean', wheeling my bike through the glass doors.
It was a Japanese cafe, gym, and hangout area for students living on campus. Two old CRT televisions stood in the hangout zone, playing programs from the nineties. I ventured into the cafe to check the menu, but the place was not yet open for business. Artisan coffee and Japanese desserts, such as Dango dumplings on sticks, were listed. A middle-aged Japanese woman with a mop came out and I told her how appetising the menu looked. She didn't understand me, so she just smiled, bowed, and said "hai!" until it got awkward and I left, apologising for the muddy bike tracks.
It was then time to ascend the stairway, but I brought my bike into the wrong lane, the side with the stairs instead of the slope. Sensing the eyes of the construction worker on me from across the road, I owned my mistake rather than shamefully backtracking. I was panting and sweating when I reached the top. The walkway levelled out and I crossed a bridge (not unlike the Hythe's infamous Spider Bridge) with good views of the altered landscape. I had to admit to myself that the development was impressive, but the whole arrangement seemed nonsensical, and put me in mind of M. C. Escher's 'Relativity'.
I was above campus looking down. It stopped raining and the sun came out, illuminating a cluster of modern art sculptures on the grass by the carpark. They looked like abstract figures made of chunky, orange plastic pipes. There were about fifty or so, arranged in a chaotic jumble that made one's eyes wobble. I soon realised that I was on a bridge above Square 2, near the Economics department, but I woke up before I made it to the security office. Mission failed, I suppose.
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