About a week ago I dreamt I was in Wivenhoe for a wedding and had booked myself into the Flag Inn, which used to be a far right pub and is now a well-to do pub hotel. In the dream it was a shithole again, but being the cheapest place to stay, I decided to risk it. This dream was no doubt based on my real life experience in Leicester, where the place I was staying at burned down in the middle of the night. Upon arriving, I was shown into a 'room' right at the back of the pub, on the ground floor.
It was barely even a room, more like a conservatory or storage barn that had been hasily converted into a guest room. There was a big middle bed in the centre, exposed concrete walls and ceiling, loose wiring, vines and tendrils bursting through cracks in the ceiling, and some attempts at light fixtures. On the floor was an ugly carpet with a repeated design showing American Confederate soldiers. Off to the side of the room was a glass shack leading to the garden, where guests were expected to do their toilet. This was essentially a hole in the ground which communicated to the weed-ridden patio garden.
My friends accompanied me to the room, and as I was only there to sleep and would be out most of the time, I dumped my bag and went for drinks, and to play pool. Later that afternoon, I wanted a shower and an hour's nap before the celebrations continued. A friend of a friend, a topless gay guy with long messy brown hair, took a liking to me and accompanied me back to the room. I tried hard to get rid of him, but he wasn't in a rush to leave, and started taking a shower. I noticed then that there were cockroaches, rats, and frogs under the bed, as they were crawling in through the gap in the bathroom. I eventually got rid of the gay guy and went to relieve myself in the tiny bathroom, but not before stripping down to my underwear, as I planned to nap after.
I felt cold and exposed, peeing into that trough which was wide enough for rats to enter. Just as I was finishing, two tiny crocodiles came scuttling in from the undergrowth, snapping away at me. I skipped back into the bedroom, grabbed my camera, and tried to photograph them as they made a beeline for my ankles. It was important to photograph them as no one would believe me otherwise. I jumped onto the bed to escape their jaws and watched in amazement as the Confederate soliders on the carpet suddenly came alive and started battling the crocodiles. They shot at them with muskets and stabbed them with swords. The crocodiles fought back but were no match for the soliders and fell lifeless, covered in wounds. The soldiers sank back into the carpet, harmless decorations once more.
My youngest sisters then arrived and I told them what had happened. There was no time to nap now, so I got some wine glasses down from a drawer mounted near the ceiling. But I was dismayed by how dirty they were, caked in a thick layer of grime and dust, with living insects swarming inside. My sisters didn't seem bothered, and filled them up with wine. I looked down into my filled glass at the struggling insect life, thinking that I'd never stayed at such a rotten hotel before.
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