For a dream

I wanted to read again. I’d forgotten what it was like to pick up a book and after a couple dull pages of introduction be swept up and sucked into a world that was not your own. A world of adventure. Escape. And when the book was over. Oh, when your eyes flittered down that last page. Drunk with impatience. When you read that last sentence. That last word. That final period and the book just about slipped from your hands. That feelingagain. That distinct feeling. I could not describe it to save my life. Fills you with wonder. Takes your breath away. But there is also a sense of loneliness. Isn’t there? The deepest most immense loneliness I’ve ever felt. But I wouldn’t give it up for all the money in the world. I wanted to write again too. I wanted to sit at my desk. No. Not the boring old desk. I wanted to be perched on the branch of a tree. Or nested at the bottom of its hollowed trunk. And outside there’d be a storm raging. Yes. A storm. Hence me hiding in the tree. Better yet hanging off the top of a cliff. Clinging to dear life with one hand and clutching my typewriter with the other. My precious pages threatening to fly off with every gust of wind. Picture it for me. The sky grunting and growling. Making a sort of gross guttural sound. Clearing his throat before letting out a low rumble. Slithering across the clouds. Dripping down the hills. Rolling through the valleys. The clouds. Like mountains in the sky. I wanted to live with words again. I hadn’t in years and I missed it. I missed it desperately. What with life and people and all that I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten to read or to write. I’d forgotten to be. And what’s more I’d forgotten I missed it. That tends to happen after a while. You forget. Couldn’t tell you why it happens. Or when or how. Maybe you could tell me. I couldn’t tell you. In any case it happens and it’s a real bastard thing because you don’t even realise it. Like how we fall asleep. We don’t know it when we fall asleep and in the morning we can’t remember exactly when we did. We just know we did. Or like with love. You can love someone with all your heart for near an eternity but love is like us it dies. But at least when a person dies you have a funeral and everything because you know they’re dead. You’ve seen them die. With love or when you fall asleep you don’t see it. That cool November morning I noticed I’d forgotten. I became aware of all that I’d forgotten. It happened all of a sudden. And as I remembered what it was like to live. Reallylive. Instead of just existing in a world I didn’t like. Theirworld. I decided I wanted to live again. I wanted to feel that feeling when you finish a good book and have to put your whole life back in question because it was just thatgood a book. I wanted my fingers pressing down on the cold metal keys of my grandfather’s typewriter. Stamping each letter onto the page. And I wanted afterwards to run my finger over the words. Feel the bumps and the curves of the ink form the sentences. Mysentences. I wanted that sense of wholitude when you finish your very own story. I wanted to be happy. You know? Anyways I was saying it was a cool November morning. It was drizzling out. I love it when it rains and you’re nice and cosy indoors. Don’t you? The raindrops gently knocking against your window. They want to come in. They do. But it’s not like when you’re outside and they’re falling on your head and wetting your hair and being overall pretty annoying. You’re in control now you see. You can tell them to piss off. You can if you want to and you probably do because the rain’s not a very good guest. No. She isn’t. Anyways on that particular morning I was making coffee while the raindrops begged to come in but I wouldn’t let them and as I sipped my coffee I thought it tasted a bit odd. It really did. So I was trying to remember how the coffee had tasted the day before but I realized that I didn’t know. Maybe I hadn’t had coffee that day. Maybe I’d had tea. It would be unusual though. So I tried to remember the day before that. Or the day before that. I couldn’t. I couldn’t remember what coffee tasted like but I suddenly remembered that I used to read a lot. And write too. I thought maybe that was why my apartment had a study with a tall bookshelf and a big desk. It was a real nice desk. You should’ve seen it. It really was big. Bigger than I needed. And neat. Just the old typewriter and a stack of white papers. And I remembered how it felt. To sit at that desk and let my mind spill onto the keys. So worn from all the typing the paint had come off and you could hardly see the letters anymore. I wanted to feel like that again. I didn’t feel like that when I wrote the things I wrote at the office. No. I didn’t. And that’s how I decided to go off somewhere pretty and peaceful and read and write until my fingers were bent and broken and I couldn’t hold a book or type a sentence for the death of me. For the moment however I just kept drinking my coffee that didn’t taste like coffee and sort of contemplated what it’d be like to go. I wasgoing to go. I was. I’d sworn it. I had. But I still wanted to contemplate the idea before it became real. Because that’s when the idea is at its best. When it’s still only an idea and it hasn’t been sullied by youor confronted withrealityyet. Then it’s perfect. But it can only be perfect so long because then it wouldn’t really be perfect. Perfect can’t last forever. That’s what makes it perfect. So I put my mug in the sink. Didn’t even rinse it. No. Why should I? Icertainly wouldn’t be needing it anymore. And I thought it’d be a funny fuck youto whoever came in the apartment next. Anyways it had stopped raining so I opened the window and the air smelled the way it smells when it’s done raining. You know? It’s a nice smell I find. I was still in my bathrobe then and I didn’t feel like changing. That’s why when I went into my room to pack a bag I put all my clothes in the bag and didn’t leave any for that day. I thought I’d try to hitch a ride in my pyjamas and to hellif no wanted me. I didn’t really want them either. Their loss. I even packed my shoes and all so I’d have to leave the house in my slippers. After all the clothes and the shoes there wasn’t much room left in the bag though. I did my best to squeeze the books and the typewriter in but there were too many books and the typewriter was too bulky. I decided I didn’t really needthe clothes and I could just toss them out and bring instead all the books I wanted. In the end the books got all wrinkled and wet because it started raining again. Better that way anyways. So people know they’re not ordinary books. They’ve lived. They have. Where was I? Yes. I was leaving the house wearing these blue cotton pyjamas. The type your grandparents would wear. But I wasn’t embarrassed. I really wasn’t. No. Cold though. I had my bathrobe too and my slippers like I said but it wasn’t much and it was November. I didn’t care though. I had my whole life in that bag. And I had my dream. Yes. I did. So I was alright. I was. People were looking at me like I was crazy though. I probably was I’ll admit. But if that was crazy then I liked crazy. I’m sure you would too if you tried it. Yes. You would. That’s the thing with crazy. You do it once and you can’t ever stop. And it don’t matter that other people look down on you because you’ve tasted something they haven’t. Youknow something they don’t. It don’t matter if they look down. You know you’re above. You do. Yes. I  do. Anyways. It occurred to me as I was walking and it was cold that I did not know where I was going. When I was contemplating the idea back in my kitchen with my coffee that I don’t think was coffee I’d imagined the pretty and peaceful place as my grandparents’ old house in Normandy. It was a very big house. Right on the beach. A real nice house. You would have liked it. You would have. I’m telling you. There was a study there too. With thick books and a long desk and the typewriter that pulled on my right shoulder now. My grandfather he was a writer. Like me. And he would sit at his big desk in this big leather chair and he would tap away furiously at the old typewriter. But you see he would never like what he wrote. He would tear the pages from the machine and rip them up. Once even he got so mad he threw the typewriter at the wall and just near broke the damn thing. All it got was a bad dent though. Thank god. I wouldn’t be me without that typewriter you know. No. I wouldn’t. But I couldn’t go there anyways. Everyone knew me there. I didn’t want anyone to know me anymore. I wanted to be alone. Yes. I was sickof people. With their conversations and all their thinking. You know what people are? They’re kids that have grown too much and have started to rot. I don’t think we’re supposed to grow so old. Because eventually we rot. We do. Like fruit. As a kid you’re sweet and you’re innocent and you’re free. And you don’t think so much. All adults can think about is the future. They think about it so much they forget about the present or how to dream and fool around making up stories. They forget to live. As a kid you’ve got all these dreams and these grand things you’re so sure you’ll do but you grow up and you never do them. Somewhere down the road you start to fill with responsibilities and other life things and you have to throw some of your stuff overboard or you’ll sink. So you throw away those childish hopes. You might tell yourself you’ll come back for them but you’d only be lying to yourself. You never go back. That’s not how it works. There’s always someone or something that won’t let you. I wanted somewhere pretty and peaceful and lonely. I did. I just didn’t know where exactly. I don’t suppose it mattered though. It was somewhere. And I was going there. To the big house that wasn’t on the beach but rather on top of a mountain maybe or in the middle of the desert. I was going to forget the future. Focus on the present and my stories and my dream. That’s why I kept walking in my slippers and my bathrobe and my blue cotton pyjamas in the cold November morning with my heavy bag even though I didn’t know. I didn’t know where I was going. But I was going there anyways. Yes. I was.