kagablog

When I finally fell asleep again I took a short cut past the old movie theatre towards the old sugar factory. I knew I was going somewhere. In my dream I knew where I was going, in my bed under a humid sheet I didn’t. But it all mixes and before long I was walking on the pavement in my dream, not knowing where I was heading and lying in my bed sweating, knowing exactly where I was headed in the dream. I ended up heading towards the ruins close to the train station not having a clue where I was going, but going there with the firm footsteps of somebody who knows exactly where I was going. What matters is that I got there, tired from shifting between the concrete pull of urban under my diesels and the soft lines of crumpled sheet printing on my skin.

The corrosion by the train station was an old little primary school. It had two public bathrooms, browned with time and stagnated in disgust. It used to be a place with movement and laughter bouncing hollow between the tiles, but now it has become revolting memoirs of events that linger in stench and mysterious decay. I heard my alarm clock go off, echoing in the corridors of the broken building. As I turned around to open my eyes and feel my skin sheet clinging, I see my towel hanging lonely on the rail in the corner of the bathroom. My navy blue little hand towel with a picture of a yellow little duck. It looks so sad, my little towel. I want to go and save it from the rail. But we always have to wake up, don’t we?

Yes, the dreams left some nasty sheet prints on my body. My skin is still tender from the night. Only coffee would straighten out these paths of dream now. Maybe that horrific breath of fresh cigarette might do it too. Better get this head straight whilst my urine is still hot. It hits me around three sips down a line of caffeine: my navy blue little hand towel with the yellow duck on it. How strange it was seeing it there, hanging still new, brand new and soft and colourful in a setting of public waste in macabre shades of time. I wished in the dream I could walk over and touch it again, dry my hands with comfort and that which was only mine in a class of thirty. I would tonight. Tonight I would go back and dry my hands on my navy blue little hand towel with a yellow little duck.

As the day stays afloat I feel a strong pull towards my dreams. I cannot help myself, it really becomes a desire as strong as only a mind can brew a potion. I need it, I need it so badly I cannot stand the resistance of night anymore. It starts twisting and turning inside me, this storm of need to dream and to be in the night. The lunch hour sun is a foe of mine and late afternoon sun cannot pass quickly enough. I had eyes for night only, for in the mystic black lies dream, my dream of my towel, my lovely, soft blue towel. When dusk finally arrives it becomes a hunger. I arrive at home and smoke a joint, drink wine, take a sleeping tablet, all at once: I need to go back to the bathroom: My little blue hand towel is there.

So I fall to sleep, plunging clumsily and making a splash, snoring, deep. For a long time I am not aware of here nor there. A third person sees me lie in a frozen pose underneath a thin layer of half sheet half darkness. I don’t even make a sound breathing and my body is past the twitching face at the gate of dream. Next to me scattered on the bed is evidence of substances sending me to where I think I am going. There is nothing strong about me lying there in a green coma, drooling slightly by the corner of my mouth. Yet I am going there, walking fast past the old cinema towards the sugar factory. Oh yes, I am going, I am panting fiercely and holding my pose even when the stitching starts in my side.

I am running to catch up with my childhood. There was so much truth in the immediate gore of pulling teeth and scraping knees. There were also lies, those lies about tooth fairies and tales about Dettol not burning. I needed to go through it again so I could find the missing piece to the questions I have now. When we are children we don’t know that clues to us are everywhere. These clues can only really be seen by children during their childhood, but they end up too busy begging for sugar and coming up with stories why they hit the guy with the Spiderman- outfit in the sandpit. I think I should’ve kept all my milk teeth, maybe I could throw them like witchdoctor-bones and the answer to the turbulence of my adulthood would appear in patterns. If I could travel back and pick up every single bloody tooth I could, to find the answers, but the fucking tooth fairy took them all.

When I finally get to my little hand towel, I run to it and grab it and smell it and push it against my face. It smells like cheap soap. I look at it carefully and observe everything about it. The colour was fading slowly, the picture of the yellow duck started tearing off on one of the corners and here and there I see a little toothpaste stain. I always thought my little hand towel to be the prettiest in the class. In kindergarten it was such a big part of my identity. Everybody knew that the dark blue towel with the picture of the yellow duck belonged to me. When we had to go and wash our hands or brush our teeth I reached for my towel and it was mine and only mine. Once a week we took them home to get them washed. There was just no way I was going to leave my towel in dream. There was no way I was going to leave it there, my little dark blue hand towel.

My alarm clock signals hollow again. I need my towel. I grab on to it and push it as close to my chest as possible. I hold on to it like we hold on to life. We will get sucked into present reality together, my little hand towel and I. I would sew the corner of the picture of the little yellow duck, give it a wash and start using it all over again. I would smell it daily and recall every single memory in the corridors of the past, tunnelling through my brain. My little blue hand towel is the answer to absolutely everything.

I wake up with a headache.

I walk to the bathroom and wash my face. As I reach for the towel and push it against my face, I get a strange sensation.

Man, this headache is killing me.

I wonder what I dreamt about last night.

I always forget my dreams.