the ramble dump

We're approaching the carpark, walking back towards the big, blocky building that is our halls of residence. There are a few of us, and we begin to weave through the cars. The carpark is only sparsely populated. It is mostly dark.

One girl, who I recognise from my English course and who I've only ever spoken to once, clutches the books and paper she's carrying against her chest, a bag over her shoulder. She has black-framed glasses and Scandinavian-blond hair. Her quick strides bring her to my side. 'Do you like Bacon?' she asks.

'Yes,' I reply, turning to her. 'Yeah, I love bacon.' I already know, and do as soon as she has said it, that this is not what she means. Maybe I am being funny. 'Wait,' I say, allowing my mouth to catch up to my brain, 'do you mean bacon as in food, or Bacon as in the writer? He was a writer, wasn't he?'

She rolls her eyes, makes an odd little noise to the same effect, and crouches down by a red car. It's a low, aged thing with a wide, flat bonnet rising in a curve over the front headlights. I can't remember if she's still holding her books. She taps her forehead lightly against the bonnet in an act of mock despair.

I laugh. 'What, you don't like bacon the food? How can you not like bacon?' I lean forward and repeat her act on the other side of the bonnet. Again, I know this is not what she is trying to say. I am being funny.

When I stand up again, I realise that the bonnet has opened. I try to push it back in place, but it won't click shut. I walk away and pretend I have nothing to do with it. The girl has already gone.

I continue making my way to the building, but stop with a few others at the entrance and turn back. Everyone is looking at the car. Now it looks as if it has nearly been flipped over. It looks as if some hidden lever is holding it in place on the other side. But there is no lever. It is moving by itself. The boot has opened.

I still pretend I have nothing to do with it.

The car has now tilted forward so that I can see through its sunroof. The seats inside are rearranging themselves, almost mercurially. I know what is going to happen next and I turn to enter the building. I glance back as something massive, black and blocky has appeared, Transformer-like. Large blocks of the same black, Lego-like plastic move about around it, glowing from cracks with a pale, ghostly green. They send a chill down my spine because of a review of a film I'd read, which mentioned small deadly creatures falling from a bigger monster.

Inside the building is a rectangular stairwell that is not actually part of my halls of residence but of my old school, in bigger, distorted proportions. I run up each flight of steps as the thing outside rises monstrously, shaking and rumbling, like something out of a videogame. It is right up against the wall and I can see it through the glass of the large windows. It is gazing in, though not at me. It is gazing straight ahead with angular, glowing yellow eyes as it gets taller and taller. No matter how many flights I go up, it is always there, its big square chest obstructing my view. I see it lift its arm, a sort of cone-shaped thing with a glowing snout. It is a gun.

At the stairhead of every flight, there is a clump of scaffolding covered in blue plastic sheet. Somehow this tells me that it might all be staged.

I wake up.

I go to a very boring lecture.

Labels: bacon, dreams

# posted by Chris @ 7:25 PM