DREAM MACHINES AND NIGHTMARES

More dessert anybody? Shirley? Rebecca? Tony? No? What about you Julie, can I tempt you to another morsel? Tina, you only had a little in the first place, surely you’ve room for another? Bruce, you must be able to help me out? Maybe later? Alright, maybe later.

Moving swiftly on, I’d like to thank you all for attending this little soiree of mine. I’m reminded of the sentiment so admirably expressed by Men Without Hats, “the night is young and so am I”, as indeed we all are, or as young as we feel at any rate. The night is indeed young so as we sip our coffees, nibble our mints and partake of the odd liqueur or two, I have a question for you.

It is a frivolous question, but I shall ask it anyway. I say question but really it’s more a game than a question. Let me start again…I have a game for you, and it goes like this. If you were able to invent any machine you could what would it be, what would it do and why would you invent it? So much for having “a question for you”, it turns out I had three. Yet I digress.

The more altruistic among you might go for a machine that could cure all cancers or perhaps one that could turn a single handful of rice into many tonnes and thereby put an end to world hunger. Those of you who seek an end to world conflict might well choose to invent a machine that could calculate a solution to, to name but one, the unrest in the Middle East. These are all noble endeavours and should be applauded as such. But…

In Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” Ebenezer Scrooge’s soon to be ex-fiancé says to him:

‘I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one…’

In furtherance of the game I would ask that you too abandon your nobler aspirations and think instead of inventing a machine that would be of less lofty benefit than those already mentioned. First and foremost the machine you choose must be of benefit to yourselves.

Thus freed of any moral obligations I’d expect one or two of you, primarily the would-be alchemists among you, to wish for a device that turned base metal into gold. Those who seek an easier path to riches may demand instead a machine to predict the winning lottery numbers, while those of you with simpler lusts may wish to invent something to render the clothes of the opposite sex totally and wonderfully see-through (although I expect that’s probably just me).

With this in mind I will impose yet another rule upon this game we shall play. The machine you invent must not put you at an advantage, i.e. by producing gold or winning the lottery, nor must it put anyone else at a disadvantage, be it the genuine lottery winner who must now share their winnings or the individuals who though fully clothed are, to you at least, starkers!

I think it might be easier if I start things rolling by telling you what kind of machine I myself would invent given both the opportunity and the constrictions I have outlined. I would invent a machine similar to a DVD recorder but instead of recording ‘Coronation Street’ off the telly it would record instead my DREAMS.

I’m not sure if it’s a blessing or a curse but I am one of those people who dream in amazing clarity three or four times a night. A blessing because it provides entertainment, a curse because I never feel rested and mostly I forget them as soon as I awaken. A Dream Machine would record my dreams and allow me to review them at my leisure.

I will usually remember the emotion of the dream and now I think about it if it is a recurring theme I can remember that as well. Unfortunately those I call my stressful dreams are the ones that linger longest. Let me give you an example.

In what now feels like a former life I was an accountant. My job was very intense and at night I would dream I was at work and trying desperately hard to find a certain number. The harder I looked the more allusive it became and the more stressed my sleeping mind also became. Although asleep part of my consciousness was aware enough to try and break into the dream to tell me I would never find the answer I sought and to let it go. The exact details of the dream however were always instantly forgotten the moment I awoke.

It is for the good dreams however, the exciting dreams, the dreams in which I meet Robin Williams, the dreams where I finally get to have three in the bed sex, that I would invent my machine.

Now I’ve said all that, why don’t we forget the “what machine would you invent” game and play a game instead where we tell each other the worst nightmare we’ve ever had?

Having said I don’t remember the details of my dreams there is one nightmare from my childhood I can still recall in almost perfect detail nigh on forty years later. I was at infant school at the time and perhaps the reason I still recall it is to do with the timing – it was Christmas Eve, or early Christmas Morning to be precise.

That December the twenty-fifth I awoke not with the usual anticipation of an excited child but rather in terror at the climax to the nightmare I had but barely escaped. My delight at realising it was only a dream turned to renewed fear when I saw my elder brother still in bed, he hadn’t got up for his paper round so it must still be early; I would have to go back to sleep! But wait, it’s Christmas Day, there are no papers, it might be time to get up after all! The feeling of relief was overwhelming.

In order to best explain my great joy at this discovery I will tell you the tale of my nightmare in full. Tina, would you be an angel and switch off the lights behind you? Candlelight is best for a story such as this. All comfy everyone? I will begin.

As you already know I was at primary school at the time and it was indeed at my school these frightening events took place. Picture if you will a two storey building, the infant school on the lower floor and the junior school on the upper. On each floor four corridors are arranged in a rectangle surrounding a quadrangle open to the sky. Along the front corridor are the school offices, along the side corridors are the classrooms while off the final corridor is the school hall. At each corner of the rectangle stairwells connect the two floors.

One day, at the bottom of one set of stairs, a deep pit suddenly and mysteriously appeared. It extended across the entire corridor save for a small lip all the way around and to get from my classroom to the hall, for morning assembly, P.E. (in our underwear, the infants didn’t wear sports kit) and lunch (“Semolina, soggy chips, the horror of school meals”), it was necessary to navigate around the pit. To fall was a terrifying prospect because apart from its depth a wicked witch lived at the bottom. Perhaps because she only came out at night life at the school continued uninterrupted.

As you see from the fine physique sitting among you I was never the most athletic of individuals and it is no surprise therefore that I fell into that terrifying abyss. I was not the only member of my class to do so; a girl called Laura shared my fate. Several times we tried to climb out before the witch awoke but each time we slipped and fell back down.

It was late in the afternoon and nearly dark when we finally managed to haul ourselves up almost to the brink of the pit. From below we heard the witch stirring; suddenly she was upon us, rising up from the depths astride her broomstick! With a final desperate effort we pulled ourselves up and over the edge, barely avoiding the witch’s outstretched talons.

In fear of our lives Laura and I sprinted down the corridor and into our classroom, slamming the door behind us. The teacher, Mrs Johnson, and some or our classmates had not yet left for the day so for the moment at least we were safe.
‘It’s too late and too dangerous to leave now,’ confirmed Mrs Johnson. ‘We best barricade the door and remain here until the morning.’

This we did, piling up desks both in front of the door and across the far corner in which we were to spend the night. Many times the witch came for us yet though she made it into the classroom she never got through our final defences. We pelted her with books, we jabbed her with mops and brooms poked through gaps in our fortifications, we shouted at her in our high pitched voices.

With the dawning of the new day the witch returned to the pit and the daily routine resumed its usual course. Those of us who had been trapped all night were allowed out early, our ordeal at an end.

On reaching home my mother immediately sent me up the road to buy some cigarettes for my dad – twenty Sovereign and none of this “tobacco cannot be sold to children under sixteen” business. At the top of the road was an alleyway that led to the garages at the back of the last few houses in the street. It also provided a convenient cut through that must have shaved at least twenty yards off the walk to the corner shop.

I had barely entered the alley when I was grabbed from behind – it was the witch, she had caught me at last. I tried to scream in the hope people on the street would hear me. My chest tight with terror I opened my mouth but no sound came out. Clasped firmly in her bony arms the witch slowly dragged me away even as people walked blindly passed the entrance to the alleyway. Still I tried desperately to scream, still my voice betrayed me. There was no escape.

So it was I awoke on my seventh Christmas morning not in excited anticipation but paralysed by fear, a fear I have never forgotten….

Well then Rebecca, would you care to continue the game?
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COPYRIGHT DM PAMMENT 16th AUGUST 2010