Thursday 7 October 2010

Craving to Sleep without Guilt

Another lunchtinme, another postcard from another internet cafe. Up in one by Brighton Statiion now. Some cellar type environment. The humming of fluorescent lights and ventilation lead me to imagine that this may be in some strange Mexico, a refugee from Bolano's masterpiece '2166'.
A morning of complex calls at work, and between those calls, looking out of the window at the building in the near-distance whose location in real-life I cannot place. I think about old horror comics and old places I have lived. A strange nostalgia for the suburbia of Ickenham this morning. Grey and rainy days, and all those shadows and pools gathering down unremarkable streets. Miles and miles of houses. A carnivorous anonymity.
Slept deeply last night and woke up this morning exhausted. Was convinced that I would niot feel awake for the rest of the day, but, as usual, after a shower, felt quite awake again.
Glimpses of the sea on my way to work. The continual rain of recent days finally lifted.
An old man sits next to me in the internet cafe, and upstairs, the Polish man behind the counter argues loudly on the phone with someone. The voices of foreign students.
I would like to sleep without guilt. I mean, really sleep. Go to sleep, and not set the alarm, and not feel I have to get up, just sleep and sleep and sleep, all day if I needed to, and not feel guilty about it at all. What time would I wake? What dreams would I have?
No notable dreams of late. Well, only one. I was with the three other people from my training group. We were all living in the same house which was haunted. trying to keep the doors and windows shut because the hauntings tried to get in from the outside. Invisible malevolent forces, taking the form of street light and wind.
A bang upstairs in the internet cafe newsagent.
The Polish man tells the old man there is a printer upstairs; '10p a sheet. It is upstairs'.