Extract from "The Book of Dreams", 10 July 2001.
Feeling ill, in a room full of people feeling ill. A cross between a doctor’s waiting room and a school gym. The doctor comes in, marches up to me and says “Hello, Exile” in a very confident way. He is shorter than me, slightly overweight, dirty blonde receding hair. He is in his shirtsleeves. Despite myself I am offended, so I summon up as much dignity as a sick person can and I say “And you are?” and he replies “Doctor such and such.” I can’t remember exactly what it was.
Anyway he begins by giving me three or four injections into my bicep, I think the left one. One or two of them involve large amounts of clear liquid going into me. The others seem to be for the insertion of small metallic objects under my skin. Sensors or something. And despite the fact that I can see these metal things sitting there under my skin, I feel no fear or pain, possibly because of the clear liquid. He goes into his office to talk privately with my parents. When he comes back, he tells me that he wishes I had told him about the shooting before he started treating me. As he says “shooting” I have a flashback to a moment of darkness, fire and searing pain, and the vision of a small metallic pellet or bullet entering my head near the temple. I realise that I still have this pellet in my head.
Then, either later in the same dream, or another:
I am walking down a large sloping road on the outskirts of the town. I meet a South African youth walking the other way. He seems interested in what I say. He follows me and we continue talking, all the way to the bus stop. We get on the bus, and sit on the top deck, where I continue to talk to him. I appear to be educating him – giving him philosophy in some crude way that he is lapping up. I don’t know anything about him. Then as we drive up a large road, with large dark green trees and parkland on either side and the sun setting to a sort of autumnal afternoon blue, I get off the bus. It happens to stop outside a large cathedral or church, which is down a grassy slope dotted with gravestones. The grave nearest me is very large, ornate and newly carved. I bend down to read the inscription and discover that it is the communal grave of the company I work for, and that all my colleagues names are there. There is a gap at the bottom that I intuitively know is for my own name.