Bonus: The Window & The Mirror
Transcribed by olanovena. Many thanks!
It was a dream, but not a dream. I was awake, I knew that. But it wasn’t real. I can’t explain it, I can only tell it.
I’m on the waterfront of a city. I don’t know which one. A lot of high-end stores, Louis Vuitton and the like, but those are everywhere. Like a Starbucks, they give up no secret of their location. Palm trees. But that could be anywhere, too. Across the water... Is the water a river? A bay? There are three skyscrapers in a row, and laid across the top of the three of them is what appears to be a cruise ship. An entire boat perched on top of three skyscrapers. But it is not a dream. I am not dreaming. I start walking. I pick a direction and go. I appear to be wearing clothes and sensible shoes, so, there’s that. It doesn’t take me long to figure it out, as I pass through the shadows of the tall buildings. I am in Singapore. I have never been to Singapore. I don’t remember getting on any flight to get here, but here I am. It all feels entirely real as I walk. The heat, and the crowds, so different from the lonely highway, the air-conditioned truck. I usually see the world from inside a capsule. And now I am in a city of tall glass capsules, and I am the one on the outside. I pass down a road, and there are a series of trees. But instead of leaves, they have brightly-colored umbrellas growing from them. But this is not a dream. Eventually, I have gone very far. Farther, I think, than I can walk. I don’t remember how I got here. I am on a quiet road surrounded by dense foliage. But I can see planes landing overhead. I am near the airport. A yellow sign with red text points me down a path to what is described as “The German Girl Shrine.” I follow the sign and discover that it is true to its word. A German teenager who died in World War One and is now worshipped as a Taoist deity. [chuckles] Well, we all leave legacies, I suppose. I go past the shrine, down to the water. Houseboats float quietly. I smell the dampness of the ground where it meets the gentle waves. And in the distance, above the water, attached to no building, I see a window with a red curtain covering it. But I am not dreaming.
I am in a hallway. It seems to go on for miles, but I think it is a trick of perspective. I think the hallway gets narrower and narrower, making it seem to go much farther than it actually does. The walls are all window, and I find myself looking out onto green hills. It could be Minnesota, maybe. Maybe Michigan. I’m not sure. I turn away from the view and see that I am in a structure jutting out from a house. There doesn’t seem to be any supports for this hallway over the drop, and so I make my way into the building. It’s empty, but has the look of a well-trodden tourist attraction. I am here before or after visiting hours, I don’t know which, because I don’t remember coming here. Every room is a new surprise. A full-sized carousel, silent and dark. I pass by it, and every light blares suddenly. Manic carnival music pops on, with a drum section I would describe as deeply aggressive. I scream. But there’s no one in sight. The horses bob up and down to the tinny march, and I leave. Another room. A staircase leading down intricate stained glass of religious themes. Lambs and crosses and such. The sunlight dapples the religion onto the steps. One room is just an entire old-fashioned main street, shop fronts and streep lamps, but covered in dust and never lived in. I realized I know this house. I read about it once in a novel, although I can’t remember which one. I had enjoyed the novel, I remember that. It was something spooky, something about road trips and weird America. But I can’t put my finger on the name. Finally, I find the exit. Outside, the sun is dead center overhead, but still, there are no people. This must be a dream, but I know it is not. Over the road in front of the house, in the middle of the air, and attached to no building, is a window with a red curtain. I step toward it, but already know that this is not the time I will reach it. Maybe next time.
I’m at the end of a valley leading down to the water. It’s sunny, but cold. The trees are deep green, the green of a place that gets a lot of rain, or a lot of melted snow, or a lot of both. Clouds cling to the mountains, like they do for reasons I’ve never bothered to look up. I walk by a yellow building, a hotel, apparently, although it does not appear to have been used as such in quite a long time. There is something especially haunting about an abandoned place where people once slept. Sure, abandoned office buildings and abandoned warehouses can bring up strange feelings, but it’s abandoned places that still hold beds where people dreamt and woke again, those are the ones that stick with you. On the third floor, I see a woman in a white dress looking out the window. A squatter, maybe. I raise my hand to her, and she raises her hand back, smiling sadly. And then I keep on walking past. It doesn’t take long to figure out I am in Skagway, Alaska. There are signs saying so. I try to think about what I know about this place as I walk. As it happens, I know about a strange miracle near here, just across the border. The Carcross Desert, the smallest desert in the world. A patch of arid sand, incongruous in the Yukon, kept a desert by the rain shadow of nearby mountains. Again, all of these amazing things caused by how mountains affect clouds. A subject I just have never bothered to learn anything about. I make my way to the port, where a cruise ship the size of several city blocks has docked, towering over this scattered little town. I’ve never seen the recreational appeal of these behemoths. They make me a little nauseous with the size of them. Looking closely, I realize with a sinking feeling that there is something off about this cruise ship, and it is something that I am becoming familiar with. One of the windows toward the bottom of the boat is not like the rest of the stateroom windows. Instead, it has an old-fashioned wooden arch frame, and a red curtain is drawn across it. As I look, the curtain moves, as though something on the other side had brushed against it.
I am under an archway made of bone. I am not dreaming. A vast being had lived and died, and then we built a structure of the skeleton. What strange creatures we are. I feel the bite of ocean air, and I look out. I am on a hill over a town. Seems quiet. Irish or British, probably. Cosied around the mouth of a river. I have no memory of coming here, but here I am. I reach out my hand and touch the archway. It feels like stone. It is not stone. All the way across town, on the opposite hill, is another kind of skeleton. The ruins of a church, it looks like. Gothic and ominous. Failing any other direction, I head toward there. Soon enough, I pass a bench with a plaque on it, informing me that this view of the town inspired Bram Stoker to set part of his novel Dracula here. Well, that totally tracks. There is a lovely welcoming town, glared down upon by that empty-eyed church, and the contrast between the two is riveting. Descending the hill and crossing the river, I make a left on Church Street, a narrow cobblestoned road of pubs and shops with names like The White Horse and Griffin and The Shepherd’s Purse. Next to The White Horse is a place called The Black Horse. Wonder if there are arguments. Church Street ends at a steep set of stairs, curving up the hill, and I take them. They go up and up and end in a graveyard of a more modern-looking church. I say more modern in that it’s still standing and has all of its doors. It’s probably hundreds of years old. Modern is relative. Beyond the cemetery is what the sign tells me is Whitby Abbey, a husk of place. What once was floor is lawn. Depending on the tone of light, this could be beautiful or horrifying. At this moment, it’s both. Of course, I already know that it won’t be missing all of its windows. I look up the high wall and see a single wooden arch frame set into the stone. A red curtain covering it. The curtain moves. And for a moment, I see the flash of a hand.