what dreams may come

 

Well bold readers this one really happened.

That is to say, it is the dream I had last night, precisely told.

Even the hilarious one liners, such as they are, were actually in the dream.

My brother Bill came to me with a Christmas present.

It was a novelty gift computer style thing, like the device they call a phone tablet, with a slightly larger screen.

It was based on the idea that the operator could fantasise about being a Jame Bond supervillain or a parody of  a James Bond supervillain like Scorpio who was in the Simpsons cartoon.

You could programme the name of any location on earth into the device and through an internet connection it would show you an image of that location maybe from some photo library like Google Earth, and you could then order an imaginary satelite to laser it to destruction from space.

The computer would digitally depict the devastation.

The brother said: "Pick any famous landmark on earth."

I was thinking, I don't want to pick anywhere with people in it, because though I knew nothing would be real, it still seemed to have a sort of reality.

So I said: "Rockall."

Rockall is an uninhabited granite island in the middle of the north Atlantic ocean which during the past seventy years was often the source of diplomatic spats between Ireland and Britain over ownership rights.

In my youth a bunch of terrorist mafia IRA musician yahoos styling themselves the Wolfe Tones had a hit song about it that went:

"Rock on, Rockall, you'll never fall..."

The brother keyed Rockall into the machine.

A lifelike image of the desolate Atlantic monolith appeared on the screen, gannets wheeling in the skies around it.

Then a slice of lambent laser light burst from above and blew it all to smithereens.

In the dream I said: "The IRA won't like that."

And I laughed, and laughed and laughed.

The brother said: "It works for people too. Give me a person you want to see killed."

The idea in this bit of the dream was that you could type in the name of a famous person or an unknown person, and the machine would give you a video representation of the person being assassinated.

The scenarios featured quite realistic figures, with a mix of actors and computer generated images playing the targets and assassins. It used motion capture technology cross referenced with data base libraries to create the illusion that anyone you typed in was being hunted down before your eyes.

The computer might also take the easy way out and pick a scenario where the satelite simply lasered your enemies into oblivion from the skies.

I racked my brains.

Even in the dream, I was rather pleased with myself that I didn't seem to hold any grudges against anyone.

Finally I could think of two.

Conor Bowman from schooldays and Sylvia Pownall who once worked contemporaneously with me in the Leinster Leader.

Later when I woke up from the dream I would be at first rather pleased at the part where I couldn't think of anyone I wanted to see dead, then I would be rather ruefully surprised at the two I eventually came up with, then I would be pleased again that at first even when I'd thought of them I didn't want to put their names in the machine, and then I would be glum enough that in the dream I'd finally decided to go along with it and let the machine execute them or more correctly, present a mimesis of their executions.

And hilariously there was no suggestion even in the depths of my dream subconscious of my having homicidal tendencies towards the people who've been harassing me for the past ten years, no mention of Stephen Kinneavey, or the Maloney drug gang, or the Hutch gang, or the Kinahanes, or the clan gang operating out of the Alke Babish chipper, or even of the drug hoors and junkies from Kilcullen's failed families that Kinneavey and the Maloneys have used for low level harassment activities against me year in year out.

Not an inkling of unforgiveness in my consciousness for more than a decade of stolen life.

I can tell you folks it is a quite pleasing reflection for an embittered self doubting fellow like me, indeed I daresay for anyone who has ever hoped to be a Christian, to find you're not totally enslaved to revenge fantasies or entirely immersed in the grip of a positively maniacal hatred. Forgiveness after all is meant to be our default position. It's what we're always aiming for.

Or so I'm told.

So no Maloneys, or Kinneaveys or associated scumbags.

Instead just Conor Bowman and Sylvia Pownall.

Surprised is the mot juste.

I mean, whatever happened with Bowman at Newbridge College was years ago. He was just a lad trying to prove himself.

As for Pownall... again... you know... how much resentment could I really hold against an office bitch... every office has one... and it's been years and surely I've forgiven her anything she did in the workplace.

When I was awake I was certainly surprised that I'd picked these two and I think even in the dream, there was a tinge of surprise.

Back in the dream I told my brother: "Type in Syliva Pownall's name."

An image appeared on the screen of a woman walking on a city street.

In the shadows I could see a masked figure of demonic aspect in traditional Muslim garb with a knife stalking her.

She began to hurry.

This image might have arisen because in waking life I'd just read a book by Ali Husnein in which he claims to have had a dream about a similar knife wielding demonic figure threatening to take him to hell.

On the screen, the assassin quickened his pace behind the woman.

She was wearing Islamic garb too which made no sense other than  that the idea of Ali Husnein's book was still somehow lingering in my mind.

The assassin broke into a run.

Back in my old Leinster Leader days if I had came upon an Islamist assassin waving a knife and chasing Sylvia Pownall down a street, my concerns would have been entirely for the safety of the Islamist assassin.

But in the dream it was different.

I became horrified at the plight of the woman.

I began to scream: "No, no, no. Make it stop. Make it stop."

I tried to grab the device, thinking to smash it.

The image became cartoonish and I realised it wasn't a reality.

The assassin closed in and attacked.

When it was over the brother looked at me quizzically.

"Put Conor Bowman's name into it," I said.