ODD SHORT DREAMS - 2021 -
Sarah Hartwell
These are just odd short dreams which made an impression on me through very vivid scenes or strong emotions.
TRUSSELCOTE
Dream - October 2022
It's funny how the old and the new can rub shoulders, barely aware of each other. If I walk along the cycle-path between the 19th Century red-brick wall and the canal (yes, the cycle-path used to be the tow-path), past 2 passing places and crossed the bridge, where the wall ended, to my left I was on a path between the untidy back yards of a terrace of buildings. And if I continued along this path, through the covered alley-way between two of those building, I was in the village of Trusselcote.
With the multi-paned, whit framed, bowed windows of the knick-knack shop to my right and the large pane of the greengrocer to my left, with the step, doorway and shop sign all in dull blue, and the half-timbered buildings opposite, this appeared to be a lovely village. It was spoiled by the busy road through the village, being on a main route towards London. A little further to my left, the main road turned to the left. A narrower road branched off of it to the right and into the quieter part of the village. At the junction was a small triangular green area with a sign proclaiming this to be Oak Ash Green, the official name of the village everyone called Trusselcote.
A short stroll to my right took me to the old church, now disused and fallen into disrepair. Its main doorway was framed by large black oak, of which only the lower parts remained. It was older than Trusselcote, the village having been built up around it. Sometime in the past someone had carved the face of a cat, three-quarters profile, into the right hand door post and added the legend Maulnificent. To the right of the old church was a small glass-roofed arcade made of elaborate wrought iron; in a quieter age it offered a dry place for a weekly market. Above the entrance to the arcade, on a half-moon of glass was picked out the word "TRUSSELCOTE" in black.
Back through the covered alley between the back yards, used for storage by the shops and rooms above them, over the bridge which spanned the lazy stream that had once been the main route of the river before it was straightened into a canal, and I'd left Trusselcote and was back in town, full of its more industrial architecture and concrete buildings.
Trusselcote was a village that wasn't really a village. In the 1800s, two competing developers had built housing estates either side of the canal. Each had designed a housing development that looked like a village. Oak Ash Green, built by Mr. Trusselcote (hence it was known by both names - Oak Ash Green and The Trusselcote estate) was built with a mix of styles to make it look like a village that had grown up over several hundred years. The old church, which had once stood on the common outside town, had been incorporated into the new "village." Across the greensward, on the other side of the canal was the Danforth estate which was more uniform in style, with more redbrick housing, a cricket or athletics green and no pretence at being a village that abutted and expanding town.
ROSCO'S WORLD
Dream 4/12/2024
"But why can't we have our devices?" protested many of the teenage passengers boarding the huge ship.
"Because you could be tracked," the steward had replied, as he scanned arriving passengers and confiscated hidden phones and any device capable of accessing the internet.
It was strictly hand-baggage only, just what we could wear and carry. It was mother, myself, my older sister Elise (18) and younger brother Paul (13). It didn't seem fair that we could only watch movies in the ship's cinemas and use retro arcade machines. At least there were books - real paper ones - and newspapers to read. All four of us had to share a cabin which meant even more grumbling. Once we were out of the port we'd be allowed to explore, but for now we younger ones were stuck in the cabin while mother was a volunteer somewhere else and wouldn't be back for hours.
"Not fair!" I muttered, banging my fist on one of the wall panels.
To my surprise, the panel fell away to reveal a dim space and a wooden ladder that didn't look entirely safe.
"Hey, Paul - look what I've found!" I called to my sulky younger brother.
"It's a secret ladder!" he cried gleefully, "Let's see where it goes!"
"Let Bobby go first," Elise told him, "just to make sure it's safe."
The ladder was rickety in places and there were several missing rungs near the top, and others that had been replaced by rope, which meant helping each other up onto the landing at the top of the ladder.
"What d'you thinks it's for?" I asked.
"I reckon it was to let staff get around posh cabins without using the main corridors," Elise replied.
"Posh?" snorted Paul.
"Well, it must've been posh when it was first built," she said.
The landing was surprisingly large with several people going to and fro, none of whom paid us much attention. Above our heads were dim yellow electric lamps hanging from chains. A wooden door to my left opened and an old woman in threadbare grey clothes thrust a coin into my hand.
"Tell the collectors I've paid," she shrieked, then went inside and slammed the door behind her. A lad my own age snatched the coin from me and put it in a bag.
"C'mon," he said, "Darragh don't like to be kept waiting."
With no better idea in mind we followed him through a narrow wooden passage, up a more sturdy staircase and onto another landing, this one with a square table in the middle and men and women lounging round it. There was some sort of card game in progress at one corner of the table, a couple of men were drinking mugs of beer, someone else was playing with a cigarette lighter and there was a tall man standing at a window which was covered by metal mesh.
The lad who'd snatched the coins from me threw several coins onto the table, "That's from floor 4, Darragh."
"Who are they?" asked the tall man, nodding in our direction.
"They were on floor 4."
Darragh walked over to my sister, who - true to form - seemed quite drawn to this dark-haired man in dark clothing.
"Where do you come from?" he asked her. No doubt she was going weak at the knees at his attention, especially as she hadn't been able to check in with her followers on social media for several hours.
"We found a hidden staircase in our room and came up it," Paul replied for her.
"One of the old staircases," said a man who had been flicking a lighter on and off. I noticed it wasn't one of the plastic disposables, but was an older metal one with a lid that snuffed the flame.
"In that case, welcome," said Darragh, smiling at Elise rather than at all three of us.
"Welcome to where?" I asked.
"Another world, Rosco's world," said one of the card players, "why don't one of you take them to see?"
And so we went down a different wooden staircase, along several corridors with right-angle turns and ended up on a arrow balcony overlooking the dock. Except this wasn't the dock where we'd boarded. Several cargo-carrying lorries drove along the damp dockside, but these looked like something from the 1950s with the style of bonnet. The pedestrians were mainly me and most were wearing flat caps. Behind them, contrasting with the style of vehicle and headwear were glass-fronted shops, familiar High Street logos, but subtly changed.
At the far right there was a coffee shop, its double-tailed mermaid on green background familiar, but the name below was "Rosco's Coffee." To its left was a chemist, but the cursive logo on blue background read "Roscos the Chemist." At the far left was "Rosco Supermarket." The passing lorry had a Rosco logo on it.
The rain was gusting onto the balcony so we retreated back inside the ship, but not before I'd peered over the side and seen a very different-looking ship from the one we'd boarded. It was drab gunmetal grey instead of white and black.
"Hungry?" asked one of our hosts.
"Very," replied Paul, who I swear had hollow legs or was going to have a growth spurt.
"Let's try the canteen."
We exited the balcony onto a carpeted corridor, though the carpet had seen better days and the d cor was tired. The canteen wasn't the restaurant we'd seen before, but was a hall with stackable tables and stackable chairs. To our disappointment, it was evidently a youngsters' sitting and the tables had cards showing who sat where. Our names would not be listed. To add to the strangeness, the youngsters, none of whom seemed over 13, were dressed as though they'd stepped out of a 1950s school. The boys wore home-knit blue-grey jumpers (some with red flecks) over shirts, and grey flannel knee shorts, while the girls wore simple gingham or check-pattern dresses. Our factory-made clothes marked us out as interlopers in this parallel ship.
We looked at each other, all having the same thought - if the kids all looked like they'd stepped out of a history book then what would the food be like? Fish-paste sandwiches no doubt, followed by blancmange, and not a burger, slice of pizza or iced donut in sight.
"We can't eat there," I whispered to Paul, "We have to go back to our own ship for food."
"Lost my appetite," said Paul with fake cheeriness. "Can we go back upstairs now?"
The man shrugged and we set off for the landing with the table and the metal mesh window. Elise was there ahead of us - we hadn't noticed she wasn't with us when we left the balcony - and she and Darragh were almost intertwined.
"Oi! Leave her alone!" I shouted at him.
"Why? She's old enough to know her own mind," retorted Darragh, "She can stay here with us."
"Don't challenge him," muttered one of the women, "He's a Rosco. What a Rosco wants, a Rosco gets."
"Elise! We have to go back!" I shouted at her, "We can't stay here. They'll be looking for us."
Some of the men looked at each other, then one said "Let them go Darragh, you know what happened last time. It upsets everything."
Reluctantly, Darragh pushed my sister away. "I'm only letting you go because incomers make everything . . . go wrong. Get out of here."
We fled back the way we'd come, back to the wooden ladder behind the cabin wall. Behind us we could hear dissenting voices saying they should follow us to our ship. As we half climbed, half fell down the ladder I ripped away as many of the treads and ropes as I could. Was that what others had done before us? Tried to destroy the ladder to prevent those others from following into our world? I pushed the wall panel into place and we looked at our disheveled clothes.
"What if we go back?" asked Elise, "Once we leave port."
"Somehow, I don't think that other ship ever leaves port. I think it exists in its own little world," I replied (having watched too much sci-fi).
"Rosco's world," Paul added.
For Elise, the temptation was too strong. She left a one-word note: "Darragh." Mother always believed she'd jumped ship before it left port. I looked behind the panel, but there was only the wall of the adjacent cabin, and no room for any staircase.
GRANNY EVANS
Dream 15-April-2025
"Nan, nan," shouted my two granddaughters as they ran indoors, "Those girls told us we're indecent!"
The two girls, aged 14 and 15, pointed to three girls in the street. Aged between 14 and 18 they were conservatively dressed in pink and white vertically striped dresses with white cuffs and collars and each had her light brown hair tied back. They looked like members of a cult. My granddaughters wore crop tops and shorts, had muddy knees and their hair was coming loose from ponytails.
"They said we're scandalous showing so much flesh."
"Half-naked."
"They said Granny Evans said so!"
"Granny Evans?" I asked, "Well ask them to ask about the days when Sarah Evans scandalized her whole family by dancing naked in Miller's Field because she thought she could work magic," I retorted, "And when the same younger Sarah Evans skinny-dipped in the millpond, knowing full well that the fieldhands could see her."
"Really, nan?"
"Yes really, Granny Evans was very fond of showing flesh before she got droopy and wrinkled with age and jealous of younger women showing off their unwrinkled skin! So take no mind of those girls, or of Granny Evans. Tell them Nan Watkins knows all about their Granny's scandalous escapades back in the day!"
They must have done so because the three girls in their modest dresses were later seen in shorts and teeshirts, and looking much happier for it, while Granny Evans kept her opinions on visible flesh to herself.