Nightmares and Other Odd Dreams

Last night I had that same old dream
It rocked me in my sleep
It left me with the impression
That the sandman plays for keeps
~Larry Norman

We were in a castle. My best friend was sitting in a window sill. Over his shoulder I could see a hilly landscape on a sunny day. Suddenly and strangely, the dream turned ugly. My friend, laughing, ordered a man with both Down Syndrome and an axe to kill me. I ran away, completely overwhelmed with terror. To make things worse I started to feel an incredible fatigue, almost as if I was, ironically, falling asleep. My steps shortened and my muscles relaxed, but my terror remained. I stopped running and crumpled to the ground, incapable of any kind of movement yet still very aware of my surroundings. My friend was still laughing.

I woke up, terrified, as the axe blade started to bite into my neck.

The Mumbler

Here's what I remember. I remember plans being made in the driveway and the thrill of anticipation. I remember Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" playing on the radio as we wound our way up the Sea-to-Sky highway. I remember a crackling fire in the fireplace, as soothing a sound as you'll find in this world. I remember hiking and exploring. I remember letting my friends go alone. I remember a soft voice when nobody was speaking. I remember terror. I remember the Mumbler.

"The sun shining at this time for a few minutes afforded an island which, from the shape of the mountain that composes it, obtained the name of Anvil island."

~ from the journal of Captain George Vancouver, June 14, 1792

On a small island in Howe Sound named Anvil, my grandfather built two cabins, both nestled (one above the other) under the shoulder of a Bible camp. The one down by the rocky beach was for him; the one above, on a steep rise, for his sister Jean.

The cabins in Winter

Anvil Island seems to exist in two different worlds. In the memories of many, it's sunshine. Its warmth and brightness can make a person glow for long afterwards, almost like the effect of radiation in a comic. In the real world, it's an island of cold dark shadows, moist with the memory of rain that never quite goes away, surrounded by mountains that steal most of the few hours of sunshine that might persuade its dank forest to surrender its water to the sky. Around some 90% of its shoreline bare cliffs plunge directly into glacier-fed, mercury-stained waters. It looks less like an anvil than a grotesque molar, lonely in the mouth of the sound. Welcoming, it is not.

Ah, but it is well-loved, despite its somewhat fierce mien. As a child, it was my real home. Civilization was a baffling, noisy and unfriendly place. As a teenager, I merely waited out the school year to return to it for those blissful few weeks of socializing that made sense to me. It was in that between time of adolescence that I went there and finally saw past the brightness into its dark, dark shadows. Something was there, looking back at me.

Heroes of Pulp Fiction

Adventure Comics #372

When I was just a little kid, I read the comics that my oldest brother inherited from our even older cousins. I didn’t choose anything; I just read whatever was available. Mostly these were DC’s Adventure Comics from the late 60s featuring Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes. Superboy, you see, would travel 1000 years into the future to fight evil villains with a great big group of teen heroes who had all been inspired by his own legendary self. They were colourful and campy, filled with teenage drama and science fiction. In other words, perfect!

The concept of artists and authors being responsible for these works never occurred to me. There were just the stories and the characters, and that was good enough for me.

Verses Versus Choruses

I can still remember that moment when a little bit of my youthful optimism died. It was Hall & Oats who did it. In particular it was their song, Private Eyes.