Blog posts

I am building a huge structure that is later to be burned and I am building it with several other people. A great wooden structure. We are standing on top of it, stamping in pieces of wood. But it begins to fall apart. We balance on top of it as it falls apart, thinking how we can escape to the building that is close to it. We begin with a plan of escape, hopping from plank to plank, while the structure wobbles beneath us. But the instability of the structure reaches a critical moment and we are still on top of it. We look at each other. Someone close says, “I’m sorry. There is nothing to do. Try to fall well.” I fall. I fall for a long time. I fall, hoping that I will die. I don’t. Instead, I find that the structure was a kind of prison and that there are thousands, like me, detained in it. The prison is built near a wide river. There are no trees, no riverbank (the grass, neatly trimmed, goes right down to the water). A giant boat comes up the river, turns the bend to approach the building, and people start getting off. I’m amazed. They are foreigners, journalists. We will be able to tell them our story.

Extravagant preparations are being made for a dinner in a very large, almost palatial home. When the guests arrive, however, there is only one of them—and it is Andrew Daddo (one of the Daddos, anyway). He is wearing oddly coloured trousers and other clothing in an old-fashioned style, probably from the sixties. He and my mother sit down to dinner. I don’t go. Grace is recited. He speaks an overlong, rambling, respectful prayer. I’m not very happy about all this and go off sulking.

[I have been having vivid, melodramatic dreams. This morning] I was at a large poetry reading being run by K———S———, but none of the other faces were familiar. It seemed to be peopled by the kinds of characters I see around St Kilda. There were enormous, mutant prostitutes displaying their deformities as they stood around the edges of the auditorium. Something has upset the program and K——— asks me to read. I make my way, despite great difficulty, all the way around the auditorium (apparently going the wrong way) to the back of the stage, from where I am supposed to make an entrance. But I have taken a long time. As I get out onto the stage it is clear that S——— has asked some other people to start reading. I’m upset by this, and there doesn’t seem any point in going on. I look for my ‘cello and immediately notice that there are many instrument cases around the walls of the hall. It’s incredible, I think, that so many people here are string-players! I spot my instrument and go over to it. It is not in its case. When I get there, some young men, musicians, are near it and want to talk to me. It appears to be resting on a chair or sofa and, before I get to it, the musicians are crawling all over the sofa and, in effect, sitting on the instrument. I complain about this. It doesn’t do any good. They say everything will be all right. However, when they take it out from under them, I am shocked to see that the belly has great gouges in it. Clear, white, deep lines of unstained wood appear from under the varnish. It is ruined. It is resting in a car. I am visibly upset and cover my face with my hands. People in a car parked behind me are watching me. I begin to cry in my sleep. I react to its loss as I would to the loss of a person, a friend. I am not hysterical, but I cannot hold back from the feeling of terrible loss. For a long time the musicians try to console me, but I tell them it was unique and cannot be replaced. [Several people want me to play, but I am thinking that there is not much point because I am no good. But this dream is not about music, or about the ‘cello at all. It is about work, about finding a job. I got a call from a consulting firm yesterday offering me an interview for a job. It is the first interview offer I have had in months. The job, however, is with a public utility located in Dandenong! The woman who called was aware that the location of the job could put many applicants off, and asked if I was still interested. My heart sank when I realised it would be impossible for me to accept such a job unless I moved to live out there. I said that I would think about it but knew, even as I spoke, that I would return her call and turn down the offer of an interview.]