*The Park

The street light seems to be in the park. The park is small and its width establishes itself from the bottom of the garden. The light seems to be on the far side of the park emitting its yellow and polluting radiance. Dark all around it. Are there moths there? Too far away to detect any movement. Further along another street light, but further back, much further back, on the road outside the park and probably on the opposite side of the road. Flats that surround the perimeter of the park show intermittent windows lit by internal lighting, illuminating their immediate surroundings, revealing the scale of smaller domestic buildings. The darkness scans the space, all is still from this vantage point at the top of the house through the bedroom window. No-one should be able, or can see into this room, there is no light. Paths from either end of the street terrace in which this house is situated, lead into the park. There is only one exit on the other side which leads to the parallel street beyond. The outer edge of the length of the park is constructed by the wire fencing that has been erected to separate the ends of the gardens from the park. The gardens themselves are long and narrow and created by adjoining fences. The fence at the bottom of the gardens is tall, about 3 or 4 metres, and through it grew hops, and now ivy, making it quite separate from the activities in the park.

**Dream 1

We were in an unknown town with lots of underpasses and fly overs. It was a north midlands town. It had a dark quality about it. The roads were narrow and lit by street lamps. There was a college building an institutionalised modern building, situated somewhere in this morass.

There was a girl in the situation, a potential GNVQ student about 16, fashionable, with platform heels and a south east accent, not strong though. She was serious and wanting to do the best for herself; she had all sorts of bits of work with her for us to look at, all separated into piles, drawings, paintings, writings, all below standard but she believed it was all alright. She was wanting advice from us on what to do.

Then things dispersed and faded, finding ourselves walking along an over pass. Through a conversation with someone familiar, who was there , or by phone, she couldn’t remember, she found that her father was living in this town. She felt this was astonishing, surprising and while not exactly frightening, it made her immediately apprehensive. She loved her father very much and hadn’t seen him for a long time. He and her mother had separated years ago, and she said that he had just seemed to disappear. Her source informed her that somebody in her immediate family had seen him recently , but she had not known about it.

He was very old now and lived alone in a small terraced house in a narrow street, rarely going out, spending his days alone in this dark little house. She was full of terror for him and wanted to be with him immediately. She remembered how lovely it had always been to talk to him and she wanted to be with him now, talking to him and feeling his warmth. She began to make her way to where he lived along the narrow streets, catching buses and acquiring more directions to her destination

***Dream 2

We were travelling from the house to an unknown place – walking at night through narrow dark streets in a built up area. We were carrying folded up clothes and blankets. My father and C suddenly appeared on the main road a little distance behind me – I remember now that I had taken the short cut we used to take as children through the neighbour’s garden. I was not conscious of my father on the journey. He took a different route, but had promised that he would be there when we arrived, and then we would go for a drink and talk. The journey seemed to take a long time, with interminable walking through streets that seemed to have no destination. Eventually we arrived and found the place we were to meet – a corner of a street with the pile of clothes neatly stacked, but a feeling of confusion continually emanating. It was still night time; we had been travelling for many hours, but daylight had not come. The streets were still lit by sodium lighting. My father was not there. He had promised he would be , but had deliberately let us down. C felt desolated too. We had done what he had asked of us. I felt a huge vacuous darkness creeping over me that created a hole that could not be filled. Only seeing him would take that away.