'In the Absence of Luminaire'

It was not a lucid dream. I did not perceive it as that. In its entirety, I was helpless, like a reluctant observer to an elaborate and compound movie, though at times the environment did react to me and vice versa - but nothing was willed into the dream-existence, as though it was a preset ride, just awaiting me to hop on. I guess the REM was brightest for recollection then, as I could not remember it beginning but on ocassion (such as this one) - it had an end.

It started in a school hall. I knew that it was a school because everyone there was dressed up in a simple and stupid uniform (ain't all school uniforms like that?, now even in dreams), however it was not one which I recognised. I was in the company of strangers consisting of boys and girls (I was only in co-ed at the age of 16, and that was an 'experimental' class where the school was trying out mixed-sex classes but in small doses - 6 Malay girls in each class - i forgot how many classes were involved). But though the outside environment was unfamiliar, the feeling wasn't. We were in the middle of preparing for some school play or something, and were now lounging around during the in-between. I was talking to someone. I was having a conversation. I can't remember the content of it now though.

All of a sudden I was sitting on the steps to an entrance of an old church. The steps were pretty jagged and most of the place was broken and cracked. It could have been marble but I wasn't really paying attention to the architecture. People were going in and out from the church, passing me, indifferent to me - while I was hiding a cigarette from their view, by placing it below my knees as I sat. I can't remember lighting it. It was already lit when the scene changed.

Then a boy came by (I couldn't make out the age or facial features - one of those common dream-shadow-people) and he asked me about the cigarette. But it was not there anymore, and as I looked at my clothes, I realised that I had stained my denim cargo pants with black tar grease. Patches of it were all over me. But my hands were covered the most with it and I was wondering where it all came from.

The boy then said that he wanted me to meet someone and introduced his aunt to me. A lecturer/professor of sorts sitting with us on the crooked steps, she asked me about the level of my education and when we reached the topic of me not continuing on with what I had studied for three years in varsity, workwise - she looked crossly at me, and retorted that it was a damn waste. That I wasn't thinking correctly et al. Then she pointed behind me and asked me to look. See what i can do.

On a huge boulder was a majestic looking moose, with large antlers standing so appropriately as though it was on stage set and that a performance would soon commence. On its antlers was a huge baboon, wild and frenzied - showing its long and sharp teeth, but all the while only supporting itself by holding on to the antlers. Slowly and rigidly it moved a well choreographed 'dance', twisting itself while still holding the antlers, not touching the moose's body at all. Over and over and over like an old gymnast wanting to prove himself (itself).

After marvelling at what this woman summoned, I turned back to her. And as if she was expecting some sort of response from me, she intercepted and asked, "Ain't that just great?". She was smiling widely.

I could not reply as I was already being drawn into the presence of my daily morning reality: the 7.00 am alarm had went off with the familiar ascending nokia tone. I picked myself up from the crumpled and tossed bedsheet and made my way to the lightswitch. In the shower, I tried to recall and imprint as many things as I could before it would be lost to the new morning. Can't say that all of it is here.

( _")