So, it's a very old dream, which has stayed with me for some time now, and it has gotten a bit rusty as I've never really tried to explore it properly or take time to articulate it through words before. There's no preamble or intro, just straight into the crucial scene, although I guess there is a bit of suspense to a degree.
I'm 9, possibly younger.... hmmm.... this is quite difficult - accessing the dream as fully as I'd like.... I'm trying to recollect the bedroom I had at the time to evoke more than just the dream, if possible.... If it was in Ashley Street then my bedroom had a very strange vibe to it. Very cold, musty and dark, and I think that may have facilitated the nightmares as a kid which prompted mum to get a priest around to exorcise my demons! I do remember flashes of waking up in the middle of the night, scared and screaming out for either mum or dad, it didn't bother me which one came. And they'd have to climb in bed with me and stay there for a while. They were probably very uncomfortable too, perched awkwardly in my single bed until I fell asleep again.
I'd found myself standing in a big white enamel bath, dressed in the brown robes of a monk. They were weighty robes, made from hard-wearing material but I don't remember them irritating my skin. I was stood in the lower half, towards the plug hole and I could see a huge crocodile facing me at the opposite end - a very well fed and meaty fucker! - aware of my presence, but in no way in a rush to hurry over. He began sauntering towards me, his scaly belly rubbing against the enamel floor, which produced unpleasant abrasive vibrations I could feel in my feet at the other end. There was a sense of inevitability brewing. Like my demise had already been determined and I was to just here to watch it play out in this dream.
As soon as I caught wind of this design I began to panic, immediately trying to call upon some dormant mystical power within that could get me out of there, or materialise a weapon with which I could kill the croc. But I remember the sinking feeling knowing that neither of these options would be available to me. I wouldn't be able to draw upon any external source to aid my escape. I was powerless, and the cause of my end was a lot closer now, steadily advancing at the same ominous pace - the vibrations underfoot and atonal sounds of the croc's scraping belly really jarring my insides. The crocodile seemed content for me to take as much time as I needed to exhaust all possible escape plans, because it knew all were futile.
By this point I was balancing tentatively on the grating in the middle of the plughole as attempts to climb up the sides all resulted in my sliding gently back down towards it.
Then a realisation about what I should do came to me. What I was most afraid of was not being rendered dead, but the indignity of dying in this way - excruciating pain and my desperate screams for help reverberating in a cold sterile chamber as the crunching and popping of my bones in the crocodile's jaws violated my ears with a quality which was beyond intimately vivid. No fucking way can I let this happen! So I detached my mind from my body. Disconnected the two somehow. It was only when I needed to that I knew how to. I relinquished my body to the crocodile while I remained present as spirit, conscious of what was taking place around me, but not physically connected. Uncoupled from all pain. I could hear the grunting and wheezing as the crocodile devoured my flesh wrapped in bloodied robes - but the flesh nor the robes belonged to me anymore. The crocodile was just eating something, and I was free to go.
