cobblestone cobblestone

i had a strange dream last night. or, a good dream, but good in a strange way? i don't know how to describe it. i blame the fact that i fell asleep listening to merzbow. not that i was trying on purpose to fall asleep to it, merzbow's not really "fall asleep to" music. it was more intended to be "lying awake, staring at the ceiling" music. i didn't know what i was in the mood for last night, other than i just wanted some white noise "tortured between stations" as i once called it. something to drown out the thoughts, but something that i didn't feel obligated to pay attention to. and seriously, merzbow is perfect for that. so thanks go to jonathan for pushing my boundaries with that stuff, because i needed it.

anyway, i had a dream i was in ireland? ireland or canada or somewhere, there was a little girl who kept mentioning south dakota, but i know we weren't in south dakota. on this cobblestone beach. the water was really, really clear and still. now that i think about it, it was probably a lake, not the ocean. i could see the cobbles clear down under the water about 30 yards out from where we were standing.

we were standing, this guy i didn't know and i. or i did know, but couldn't place him. dark hair, kind of long, but not LONG-long. a grey golf cap. scruffy face. he didn't really look at me much. he had a younger sister who was with him. maybe she wasn't a sister. just a girl about 7-8 who he had with him, he was supposed to look after her. (she's the one who was talking about south dakota.) we were looking at the cobbles and talking about where they had come from, what they were planning to do, if they had a place to stay - or if i had a place to stay?

there was a small pub, just up from the beach, on one of those grassy green hills, the perfect little picture of what you'd expect a little shoreside pub in a tiny town in ireland to look like. the whole dream was washed in the colors of cobblestones, greys tinged with color, but not overtaken by it. the grass was a grey-green. it must have been stormy, or at least overcast, for the light to be that way. but then there's always been a strange correlation with the way my mind will color the settings in my dreams, as if the color were the thesis or mood of the whole dream. that is often the case. at any rate, the cobblestone colors of the dream made me feel detached, disjointed, coolly collected from the scenes unfolding before me.

we go inside the pub, the tables are small, low, bulky but kind of unstable. like they were made out of driftwood. accompanied with rickety chairs. it was a long, low, narrow room. i remember a fireplace, but i can't recall any warmth or color coming from it, though i know there was a fire. again, the pervading greyness.  most of the light was coming in from the windows, which is to say there wasn't much light, since it was so grey and dark outside. or perhaps it's just to illustrate how dark the interior was, if any light at all from outside was making a difference.

it took a while for my eyes to adjust, to take in the room. we sat at a table near the door, this man and girl and i. we were joined by a woman in a nightgown, of all things. like it's perfectly normal to be wandering around in a nightgown at a pub. her hair was mousy brown, long and thick, falling past her shoulders. in fact, it could have been a beautiful chestnut brown, but again, the grey wash made it mousier than perhaps it was. her face was unremarkable. plain, normal. no striking features, no shocking features. blue eyes that were more watery grey than blue. lashes, brows, matched the mousy brown hair. she sat at the table with us, pulled one of the chairs over, sat on it sideways, and whipped out a notebook, in which she was writing an account of her latest tryst with this young man in the golf cap who wouldn't look at me.

the things she recounted seemed ridiculous and far-fetched. enough to make a sailor blush, as it were. an irish sailor, at that. surely not, not this mild-mannered, shy, mellow boy sitting at the table refusing to look at me. but he was looking at me, i noticed. as this plain crazy nightgowned woman sat there reading aloud torrid and tawdry details, he just looked at me, unblinking, unemotional. his face blank, but open, honest. like i was supposed to write or read something off it. a blank page to be turned or scribbled on, and i wasn't sure which.  so i did nothing. i sat there looking back at him, glad that the younger girl had gone off to the bar or back outside or something, so she wasn't there to hear all of this. the nightgowned exhibitionist was still regaling, and i was feeling quite uncomfortable about it. i looked over my shoulder, to the right. my back was to the fireplace, the way i was sitting, and i noticed in the far, dark corner, an upright old piano. looking like it was made from the same sort of driftwood the table and chairs were made of. the bench slanting at an odd angle, like the piano was abandoned to the corner because no one could sit and play without sliding to the floor and bashing their head on the wall.

i stood up and walked over to the piano, trailing my fingertips over the keys, but not disturbing them. i love old pianos. i always have. they make me feel... reverent, or respectful, kind of in awe when i think about the people who played them, or the songs that may have been pounded out or coaxed gently from them. old pianos are haunted with songs, in a sense that i don't really get from any other instrument. i wonder about the significance of the piano. anyway, as i'm tracing the greyed yellow keys with my fingers, as if i'm going to divine some past secrets through contact with the thing, someone comes up behind me.

i turn, and it's a man, not the man at the table, but a taller man, lighter hair. he puts some sheet music down on the piano and motions for me to sit, asking me to play it. his hand suddenly heavy, hot on my shoulder as crumble onto the bench and reach for the music, hoping it's not embarrassingly difficult. or embarrassingly easy and i make it difficult by my inexperience and my novice musicianship. it's handwritten, the deliberate filling-in of the quarter and eighth notes careful and complete, with pencil, like bubble sheets from grade-school tests. the music was easy enough to read, i panicked less. but at the same time, i noticed the room was a lot more full of people than i'd thought. my nerves began to gnaw in that hollow at the back of my stomach. the light-haired man was humming the melody of the right hand, as if that was supposed to make me feel less nervous. I could have played the right-hand easy enough, but the stretch for the chords in the left-hand were a key and a half too long for my short fingers, and i knew if i played, it wasn't going to be pretty. i begged him to let me just go back to the table, but he kept insisting, and wouldn't move his hand from my shoulder.

the dark-haired man came up behind me and offered to play the song instead, with a request for a, uh, small favor in return. i obliged and was saved from embarrassment. the rest of the dream is just images now, he touched the keys and it seemed like the fire was stoked, roared to life. he played beautifully, a warm glow spread, not from the fire, but from the piano. a bright, warm yellow pushing the grey away. patrons crowding around the piano corner, watching his hands rushing over the keys.

i retreated to the doorway, opened it. the tall man with the light hair looked back over his shoulder at me, watching me as i left quietly and shut the door. it was storming now, the wind whipping water in my face.

and then i woke up. one earphone still in, the merzbow still on repeat. i picked up my phone, it was 4 am. didn't go back to sleep, but i turned the music off.