This is Not a Dream

Music is - She Hangs Brightly by Mazzy Star.

I leave here feeling slightly chilled. The atmosphere is heavy with the scents of a dark corner of the garden or even of the inside of one of the sheds, all damp wood and dried flower heads. On a rough table there is a tub of Nasturtium seeds drying for planting next year. The tools lie haphazardly, unused for years, peeling red and green and still with the dirt of the last dug potatoes stuck to the blades. This is a birthday I think. Somewhere close by, someone is smiling at their cards, regretting the continuing absence of the senders. I love this quite. It is just warm enough in here to sit back and close my eyes. It is a womblike existence, the light diffused through the walls is sufficient to see by and maybe I can find a horticultural book of some sort close by. Looking round further, I can see a few bottles of dark coloured liquid stacked under a wooden tressle. They look like wine. They may be wine. I hope they are wine. I shuffle over to them, take one bottle and uncork it. It smells like deep red wine and I glug it down. It has not travelled far for it tastes of local vegetables. I have found the absent gardener's homemade wine. I cannot tell how strong it is and will have to wait for sleep to tell me. Next to the wine, I find the books I knew must be here. There are indeed books about plants and gardens but there are others as well. There are books about travel and winemaking, some engineering, some novels and some of what a colleague of mine might call 'artistic magazines'. I light the oil lamp and begin to read a book about Scottish Islands, comfortable that I will not have to leave for days. Do you believe I did not look at the magazines? The old fellow must have kept them in here so his wife did not find them.

I know he did not leave the house for years and for the last few months did not even leave his bed. He sailed the world in the mad destructions of his mind but they found him out and started booting his door in at night. We never knew who he killed. I suppose we could find out but I know that nobody left alive cares much about it now anyway. Lord I though I heard him then, shouting down the garden because he could see the oil light. But I don't believe in ghosts, even this late and in this darkness. He was the madman at the bottom of the garden. Those beat up old trousers and that threadbare cardigan. He was so abnormal. It may be the difference in ages but I cannot get on with that sort of person. They are the ones responsible for the mess we are in. Vote them out.

Nobody votes anymore. They made it so easy for us didn't they? Online voting, swipe cards, even used the lottery machines and still we don't vote. Things happen with or without a Government. He would have died with or without a trial. Either at the hands of the crowd like he did or in the white room where they pumped him full of drugs. We watched that crowd the day he died. They simply rolled over him and he died somewhere in there but we never saw him afterwards. My mother said we were too young to look at such stuff but there were plenty of mothers with their kids screaming like the rest of them. You can see why can't you but people dying is so common now that we don't bother to note it anymore. They used to have an offence called murder. That is what they killed him for. It is not on the statute books anymore. I think it isn't. There are so many more serious crimes aren't there? My friend was caught for saying something nasty about his teacher. She nearly hit him but that is worse isn't it. I don't hate anyone any more. It is too much effort. Don't love anyone either for the same reason.

Maybe I still love my mother. She was warm and nice like this shed. I would follow her anywhere. My brother and I got separated from her one-day at a big agricultural show and I spent the hour it took to find her with my heart in my mouth. It felt like that anyway. I couldn't even drink because of that. And when we found her I couldn't speak. All that and then a few years later she died and I cannot remember how I felt then. I didn't cry then though my dad tells me I went mad a few months later; smashed up all the toys I still had. I only wanted books after that. You can create a whole world in your head that any number of toys will never match. He has loads of books. Sorry - had loads of books. Who owns this house now? I don't know. There isn't a sign to say keep out. We just do. Until now. Daft dare really. Spend a night in his old shed and what do I get for doing it? Nothing. I should have brought my Walkman. No! I would not have been able to hear those ghosts I don't believe in.

It was a sultry day when they executed him I think. The locals all called it an execution but it looked like a pack of hounds to me. I saw some on an old film once, tearing a fox to shreds. Far worse than the dead cat we found this morning. At least that was still in the form of a cat and not in small red shreds. The dogs just spat them out because of course you cannot eat a fox. What I meant was, the dogs cannot eat a fox. Of course we cannot eat a fox though I seem to just know that without knowing why. Why can't you eat a fox? I suppose you can eat anything. Is there anything to eat in here? Nothing at all. Still I have his wine. Not made me sleepy yet. Did you know that there are no trees on Shetland? Well not many anyway. It says here that the best Lobsters are found at Scalloway. I always thought Lobsters were red but apparently they only go that colour when you boil them. I have never had Lobster. Is it one of those if-it-costs-a-fortune-I-must-pretend-that-it-is-delicious foods, like caviar? Had that at my Grandparents Golden Wedding. Just a lot of fishy salt if you ask me. Preferred the toast that came with it. Dead toast. All toast must be dead. I think the wine has got to my brain.

The phrase "sweet Molly" just popped into my head for no reason. You know when you go to sleep and you hear someone say something to you and you cannot work out whether it was real or just a Hypnagogic dream? I hear my dad sometimes but I always know it isn't really him. Why "sweet Molly"? Who is Molly? I hope she is nice. I just heard her surname in the dark and that is quite spooky. Molly Spender I think she said. Oh now I have decided in here (Taps head with finger) that it was Molly herself speaking. She sounds nice. No accent. Like a newsreader. Must be sleep that does this. I dream of newsreaders sometimes. Not just the girls, but they come to me and tell me what happened during the day and then when I wake up I don't have to worry about what happened because it is just news and gone and I cannot do anything about it. Of course I cannot do anything about it before it happens. I can only do things about the time right now. The present they call it. Yes I know I am being silly but it is the only real thing in the whole world and the only point in time that you can affect. Molly is calling again. Molly Spender is the author of the book about islands. I knew she was not real. Well she is real but not here and not in the present. There is no dust jacket on the book so I don't know what she looks like. I will find out when I get home. Tomorrow.