In Marble Halls

Is this my dream or yours?

I feel... I feel as if I know you. Like I´ve seen you before. Somewhere.

Is this my dream?

I have no particular emotional link to the blue bicycle, the silver streamers at the grips. This is from your childhood memory, not mine. The temples are on me, I´m sorry if they confuse you... I find my way quite easily. Give me your hand. I´ll guide you through the pillars. I feel as though I´ve seen you. Not met you, but as if your face was a picture, spliced into the film of my life. Like a glimpse between tinned products on the other side of a grocery aisle. Like a crumpled picture in the gutter. Under the rush of rainwater.

Like I saw you once behind the window of a missed bus, just before it pulled away. Like we passed in the waiting room of a dentist's practice and tried not to look at each other. Like that. Who is the boy?

What boy?

Over there, striking sparks to the driftwood between the pillars. The pillars shaped like Venus and the Minotaur. Did I make him up?

Him. No. He´s one of mine. I went to school with him. For two years I watched him from afar. I loved his golden hair. His laugh. I never knew him.

You still dream of him.

Sometimes. It is not for your eyes.

I am sorry. I don´t know why I´m here.

Does anyone.

Tell me about the boy.

There isn´t much to tell. Once, we were invited to the same party. There was no smoking inside and we climbed up to the roof, the two of us. We were drunk, both of us, but not so drunk. The bass thudded in the tiling beneath us, we laughed about things I don´t remember. He asked me what my sign was. I felt so deeply, irrevocably connected to him then. The next Monday, we smiled at each other in the bleak, linoleum halls. That was all I ever got. I hardly knew him.

You loved him.

I loved him. Just for that. Silly isn´t it. Do you want to go inside?

We are inside.

No, look. Look, the trees growing around the pillars. Look, the creeping vines, the twisting hedgerows.

But the marble floors, the pillars.

Look up above. Don´t you see the stars?

I see them. Where has the ceiling gone?

There was never a ceiling.

Why temples? Pillars, marble, statues. Why? What is the meaning?

No deeper meaning. No Freud. It's what my mind looks like when I am sleeping. Come, let's go inside. Over there, the marble arch, the white one.

They are all white. Lead me. It's your dream.

It´s ours. Ours. Who are you? What do you do?

I am a photographer. Don´t you see my camera? Your mind is beautiful, in a haunted, Greek sort of way. May I document it? Though, would it... I suppose it wouldn´t... translate. To the other side, I mean. I suppose.

Perhaps you should have become a painter.

I lack patience.

If you could do it here, it might be like running.

Like running? Weightless, effortless?

Timeless.

It wouldn´t translate. It would be lost in your temples, in your temples within temples. What is a painting when there is nobody to regard it?

I could. Regard it. We could.

You think we will meet again?

Here? Or out there?

Here, there. Where ever.

Maybe we have before. I know you like a glance met on a busy street. Like a fleetingly scanned obituary.

Am I dead?

No. Sleeping. What is that clicking noise? It sounds like Morse code. It sounds like a giant multi-fingered insect. It sounds like -

-knitting needles. Behind this door. The white wood so smooth. It comes from the other side of it.

Should we open it? Perhaps there is a key... somewhere. Do you have a key?

Here around my neck. The chain has been cutting into my skin the whole time, I think. It's louder with my ear against the wood. Knitting needles.

Open it.

No.

Why?

That´s my mother. If I close my eyes, I... Behind the door, it will smell like powdered skin and mothballs. There will be a rocking chair. There will be mauve velvet curtains. I won´t go there. Don´t make me go there.

I won´t make you.

Hold my hand ...Thank you. I want to move. Can we move away? What´s over there, where does the wide marble staircase lead?

Up.

The banisters are so cold under my fingers. Like the stone is freezing from the inside. Like the stones were built with ice holding them together. I am not cold.

I built this.

Built it with your fingers?

Built it with my eyes. Seeing it I created it. It took me years. Years and years. I began building... a long time ago. Pillar by pillar, stair by stair. Stone by stone.

What was here before it?

Nothing. I built because I saw. From the beginning. Somewhere in here, there is a carousel. Somewhere there is a beach. I have not visited the beach in a long time, I have forgotten the way. The temple dissolves into broken plates of marble and fallen pillars and the sand seeps into the halls. Somewhere beyond that the sea. I haven´t seen the sea in years and years.

Perhaps you no longer need it.

That is not how the mind works. The mind buries.

What is that statue, there, far up the staircase? It casts a bat-wing shadow over the stone. Is it an angel?

It is Icarus. He is not old. I remember well how I built him.

Not to fly too high.

I curbed my expectations.

You lost faith.

I grew up.

I am tired of your dream. I am but a tourist. I must rest.

You are resting.

Is there no way out?

The temple has rooms, not exits.

No exits?

Where are you out there? How do I find you?

I want to wake.

Will I see you again? Will you return?

I want to dream alone.

Don´t.

Don´t what?

Don´t wish for that. I am always down here. I have slept for a year... maybe a decade.

I can´t remember how to wake.

Don´t go. I have so much to show you.

I hear a distant beeping.... my heart?

Don´t go. You have not seen -

Your temple is crumbling. Don´t you see it crumbling?

It´s alright. Please. Tell the others...

I think I will wake up now.

Tell them to remember me.