Lee Rourke - The Canal

“It’s just a dream. It’s boredom.”

“It’s more than that. ‘Let me die with the Philistines!’ cried Samson. The concept of self-sacrifice is nothing new to western society. The Christian Knights Templar sacrificed one of their own ships and hundreds of their own men just to kill twice as many Muslims. This is nothing new to us. I am not alone. We grew up with tales of the Japanese Kamikaze pilots and bombers during World War Two. Aircraft as flying bombs is nothing new to us. It was in your father’s lifetime that Japanese naval officers would man and steer torpedoes; who, after aiming the torpedo at their intended target, would proceed to shoot each other dead as the machine hurtled towards its victims. We act like this is a new thing. But it’s not, is it?”

“And you find self-murder exciting?”

“Yes, especially the recent bombers, more so than those who piloted the planes into the World Trade Center. The CCTV footage of the London bombers is just so modern, so normal. They looked so real, there is nothing untoward in their actions prior to the catastrophe. Then they became those extraordinary beings … Yet in those images there’s no intimation that they were about to transform themselves. They were completely part of the ebb and flow of the city, walking into that railway station, not once looking out of place.”

“You have to tell me more about your dreams … You have to.”

She ignored me. Thinking back, it is no surprise to me that it wasn’t tales of suicide bombings I was after. I simply wanted to listen to her speak intimately about those things that were hers alone: her desires and fantasies.

“Most people believe religion to be the sole cause of the suicide bombers’ actions. I refute this …”

As she said this I saw the fox again as it rummaged for food on the other side of the canal by the iron bridge. It looked content and happy, if a little malnourished.

I pointed over to it.

“Why are you pointing over to that dog? I thought you wanted to hear more about my dreams?”

“It’s a fox … It’s not a dog …”

“Yes it is. It’s clearly a dog.”

The fox continued to look for food, oblivious to us both watching it on the other side of the canal. It was definitely a fox. I wasn’t sure why she thought it was a dog. I never asked her. My hands were trembling. I wanted to put them on her thighs; I wanted to hold her. I felt foolish, like I was in some sort of dream, or caught up in some sick prank.

“You know, aside from my dreams … These modern suicide bombers are the dark side of the moon. We can never truly see them, be them, understand them … Yet they are constantly with us, only ever surfacing when the time is right. It’s funny.”

“What is?”

“Sometimes their actions are my dreams — their actions have been exiled into my unreality, my world beyond.”

“Tell me about your dreams, about them, what happens in them?”

“I’m turned on, of course … Is that what you want to hear ?”

“No … You’re turned on by what they do? By their actions?”

“Just by them. They are in a room with me and I am watching them bathe and wash and prepare … I watch them as they calmly pack everything they need. I touch them, stroke their skin . I wake up every time, distressed, the sweat dripping from me, my heart beating. This dream returns to me over and over again … I cannot stop it …”

I was finding it hard to control myself as her warm breath caressed my neck, under my right ear.

I’ve never been able to fully remember my dreams. In fact, I was always jealous of those that could, to such an extent I would make mine up so I could be like those people who tell you their interesting and meaningful imaginings from the previous night. If I did remember my dreams they were usually images of random colours, roads, faces, sounds, and feelings. Nothing was ever coherent enough to piece together into a narrative. Over the years I began to accept these fragments as pieces of me that didn’t need to be unravelled, or put back together to form a whole. The whole doesn’t exist. I rather like them, my dreams, as they are: meaningless and nonsensical. I must have had dreams about people along the way. Private dreams. Dreams that I would never tell a soul. It must have happened to me, but I can’t remember any of them. Even the embarrassing dreams of my teenage years have left no mark upon me — it’s like they never existed.

A couple of years ago I got talking to a stranger in a pub on Kingsland Road. He had just sat himself down next to me. At first, I felt extremely uncomfortable, but his presence soon began to calm me down. I had had a busy day at work and I was trying to relax with a warm pint of Guinness. At first he pulled out a book from his bag and began to read — I have no idea what this book was, but it was thick, with a very light blue cover, possibly of clouds. Thinking back it was his movements when reading that annoyed me — the pauses, the hand on his chin, and the slight nods of the head — and I was quite relieved when he actually put down his book and began to speak to me. He had a northern accent, although it was soft and lilting and not as abrupt and thick as they can sometimes be.

“One of those days.”

I glanced up from my pint of Guinness and feigned a knowing smile in the hope that that would be the end of it.

“I said, one of those days …”

“Oh … Yes … I suppose so …”

“I’ve given up …”

“Oh … Given up what ?”

“Everything.”

“ Everything ?”

“Yes. I’ve given the whole lot away.”

“What do you mean?”

“My possessions. Best thing I ever did. The greatest day of my life was the day I gave away my car …”

“You gave it away?”

“Yes, to a friend. I’d had enough of it. I wanted myself back … my life back.”

“Sounds like a good plan.”

“All my life I have had this recurring dream …”

“Really?”

“I am alone on an island in the sun. Not even the wind to keep me company. When I was a child I used to wake up in cold sweats from this dream. But as I got older it began to make sense. It got to the point that I would lie in bed hoping that I would soon drift off to that island. And when I did I never wanted to wake up again. Waking up was just another disappointment … And now …”

“And now what?”

“And now I spend all day thinking about that island. It’s all I think about. It has taken me over.”

I wanted to be on that island, too — but not alone. I wanted to be on that island with her. Nothing would be able to interrupt us. She wouldn’t have those dreams. She wouldn’t have those thoughts. We’d exist together in sheer, unadulterated bliss.

Boredom would be ours.

She had stopped talking and was, again, staring straight ahead towards the whitewashed office block. In the silence, something about her gaze made me suspicious; I wasn’t sure she had been telling the truth. It felt like she had been testing me, like I was her little pupil or something. It felt like she was revealing something to me for the very first time — something that had not yet happened, something that was obvious to her, but not yet to me. Maybe I had misheard everything she had told me? Maybe I didn’t understand? The things she had said to me unnerved me; such things aren’t normal. At least, I didn’t think they were. But she spoke with such conviction, such vim, such heartfelt emotion that even if it was a lie, a test, I didn’t care. I wanted to keep listening to her, by the canal, on the bench. It was like I was envisaging some present that could only be found in a future that could never exist … a future that was being reinvented by her.