Saturday, 31st of March - addendum

I’ve spent the last two nights in my house and I think Julie is starting to pick up that there is a growing distance between us. I’m seeing her tonight for drinks in Chinatown (we’re meeting in De Hems). I don’t know how it’s going to go.

Saturday, 31st of March

Last night I dreamed I was stood in the park again, looking at Elvina perform up there on the stage. She seems bigger in my dream; not to say that she’s plump or overweight, but more as if her entire stature has grown. I’m looking at her over people’s heads, a huge distance away, yet I can see every inch of her so clearly – as if she’s thirty foot tall and towering over all of us.
It’s definitely Alison with me, I’m stood with my arms around her waist and am nuzzling her neck. I look up and to the left of me are my mum and dad, with my sister as well. To the right are various friends of mine. We’re all together, all waiting – like one of those cults that lives to greet the apocalypse.

And when that comes we are all smiling.

Thursday, 29th of March

When I was first with Julie, I didn’t have dreams in her bed. Those nights  I was between her pink and scented duvet, within her oddly girly room (it's a bit incongruous to her personality actually), it seemed like there was some magic power warding my dreams off.
That doesn’t seem to be the case now.

Now I wake up in the small hours covered in sweat as frequently as if I was in my own bed. Fortunately Julie is a sound sleeper, and so there’s no need for me to try and explain it to her while in a scared, emotional and irrational state of mind. In the morning she does wonder why I’m so sleepy, but I’m able to shrug her away (I’m never great in the mornings). As long as I don’t lash out in my sleep I’ll be fine, but never mentioning what’s going on is starting to get me down.

Wednesday, 28th of March

I find myself missing Alison. Not because I dream about her a lot, but because in her disappearance and subsequent messages (as well as what might have been her brief reappearance in Hungary) I feel that she’s somehow a lot more connected with me now. I think if I was to sit down and talk to her about my dreams and what I’m thinking, then Alison would understand. It’s like she’s part of it, as if we’re on the same wavelength. (I know that’s not how I necessarily felt about her during our brief relationship, but it’s a sensation I can’t shake now). I know I have Julie, a new girlfriend, but she doesn’t understand and so I don’t try talking to her about it anymore. If I’m honest I think it’s causing a bit of distance between us.
I have all these thoughts and visions in my mind and no one to share them with – apart from perhaps my ex girlfriend (who has vanished) and maybe a female Elvis impersonator in North London.

Jesus! When I put it like that I see that, I really am fucking insane.

Tuesday, 27th of March

In my dreams, when a mushroom cloud appears at the distance – is a nuclear bomb really what I’m seeing? Is it war? Are the Russians, or the Iranians (or even – special relationship gone forever – the Americans) launching strikes against us? Am I witnessing the annihilation of the world as we know it?
Or is it something else? I read once that a nuclear explosion is actually only one percent of the potential energy of the bomb which creates it. Human beings, simple race that we are, don’t yet know how to tap into the full energy in the world around us. Indeed, if we could, there is so much energy untapped within our own bodies that we have the potential to blow up like nuclear bombs ourselves if we could harness it.

So what if the thing I’m seeing is new, not a bomb at all – a development far scarier and more powerful? What if the thing which brings the end of the world is something we only discovered how to do the day before?

Monday, 26th of March

Things I should try to improve this year:
1. My love life (although that seems to be going well, fingers crossed)
2. My book sales (well, I am trying).
3. My job.

I think Louise sees that last one as the root of all my problems – my general malaise in the world of work intruding into the rest of my life (and my dreams). But I’m not sure I buy her thesis, as I’m not overly ambitious career wise and happy to plod along. My job is something I do, not something I am. I did try to explain this to her tonight, but I think I failed. After all, I have told her I’m unhappy there and so one can’t blame her if she thinks I shouldn’t put up with unhappiness.

What else could I possibly do though? I’ve been in this job years now and still have no idea what else I could try.

Sunday, 25th March

Julie was busy last night, so I went to see Elvina – the female Elvis impersonator I found in Clerkenwell. She really is something – sexiness personified, gorgeousness defined. I see her in my dreams of course, singing in the apocalypse, but it was so much better to see her in the flesh. Perhaps I was hoping that the reality would put the dreams out of my head, but that wasn’t the case at all.
She introduced ‘Always On My Mind’ by saying it was for a special friend and admirer – then stared directly at me the entire length of the song. Her body was leant slightly back, so her breasts were high in the spotlight, and her right eyebrow arched knowingly. Why was she staring at me? Did it mean anything, or was it just flirtatious showwomanship? How could she know who I am?

Does she read this blog?

Wednesday, 21st of March

I now understand why people who’ve read Nostradamus say he’s too vague. My father went through it as an undergraduate and he told me that the language is so flowery and the images so opaque, that you can interpret these ramblings to mean virtually anything. Yes he predicted ‘Hister’, but a lot of the others require a huge leap of imagination. I don’t think that I’m a new Nostradamus (not least because this blog is supposed to be there to promote my new novel – that might dent my credibility), but I now see some of the problems about prophesising the future. After all what I am really seeing? Is the world going to end when a meteor strikes, or a nuclear explosion, or some ancient monster from below, or something else? It’s impossible for me to tell, and predicting all those things at once just seems like desperation, as if no matter what happens I’ll be right.
Perhaps my therapist is correct and I have a problem, maybe my girlfriend is correct and I shouldn’t worry about it – but I can’t get these things out of my head.

Tuesday, 20th of March

People talk about being naked in dreams all the time, I guess it’s a sign of vulnerability and helplessness. However I’m rarely naked in my dreams, for whatever reason my own peculiar vulnerabilities are never exhibited in that way. Except last night I was.
I was stood on my street, with the broken branch in front of me, waiting for that bright light to crash in from above. And I was completely nude. But I’m now so used to seeing the world destroyed – I expect it to happen – that my own nudity doesn’t bother me. What does it matter if I'm naked when some meteor or asteroid (or perhaps something completely unidentifiable) is about to fall out of the sky in front of me? We’re all going to die, after all.

But then I start to feel a creeping on my flesh, the hairs on my body start to stand on end. What I’m feeling isn’t just fear, it’s sheer fucking terror. But it’s not at what’s about to fall from the sky. The feeling I have comes from being watched. It comes from the sense that around me there are dozens of pairs of eyes staring at my naked form. It shouldn’t matter as something is about to fall from the sky and obliterate us all anyway. Why should anyone care? But the realisation comes to me that everyone watching me knows what’s about to happen too, and are preparing themselves. In the world that comes afterwards (if we survive) being naked will make you more vulnerable than you have ever been before – it will be good to be armed, good to be protected.

The world afterwards will not be a friendly place.

Monday, 19th of March

My fever dreams are difficult to recall with any clarity now, but I’m sure there was one of them involving Louise. We were sat in her room, and her eyebrow was raised as I talked through one of the crises in my life – probably the dreams themselves, but maybe the intruder in my flat, or perhaps Alison. (Not even my own therapist takes me seriously). And just as her eyebrow arches its highest, there is a sudden explosion from outside. It’s an incredible sound, clearly not particularly near but one that vibrates through us both and smashes the glass in the windows. In an instant the air is sucked out of the room, and the expression on her face changes. It looks like fear, but perhaps there is also the realisation that she should really try to believe me.

Sunday, 18th of March

I tried to tell Julie about my dreams last night. We had a quiet night in and it was so sweet and pleasant an evening, and there just seemed to be such a deep and strong connection between us, that it appeared the right thing to do. I wanted her to share my thoughts, to understand what was going on in my head.
However, before I got very far at all, she kissed me on the nose and told me that the dreams would pass. I didn’t mention anything more about them, nor did I let on how deflated I felt.

I haven’t told her about seeing Alison (or the text message); I didn’t mention my suspicion that someone else had been in my flat; and now I’m keeping my dreams back from Julie as well. It’s strange as I like her a lot, we have a really good relationship together, but there is just so much going on inside my head that she doesn’t know about. There is just so much of me that she is clueless of.

My therapist doesn’t want to know, so is this the blog my only outlet for these worries? Is there anyone out there who understands what I’m going through?

Saturday, 17th March

Afterwards.
It seems to be perpetually dusk, a greyness fills the sky and clogs the air. Around me is recognisably London in Britain, but one so shabby and run down it seems to have long ago given up on itself. I’m wandering down a street: residential, with tight post-war houses crammed in together. I don’t recognise it, it doesn’t look like anywhere I've been – but then in the dream it looks not so much a street, as a wasteland. My progress is slow as I’m limping. Once, long ago, I broke my ankle and it feels like that. My hand reaches out to touch the nearest wall and the brick (once red, but now dusty grey) is freezing. In the dream I must know, but in my conscious memory now I have no idea where I’m heading. But then I stop. Ahead of me, faintly on the breeze, are sounds. I’ve no idea what these sounds are – whether human or animal – but the place I’m heading to is not worth a confrontation (not yet anyway) and I back into a doorway. I will wait these until the sound drifts away again, I’ll wait until I feel safe – or as safe as I will ever possibly feel again.

Thursday, 15th of March - The Ides

Apologies for the delay, but I’ve been laid up in bed with a lurghi. I don’t know what it was – some kind of virus, I guess – but for a couple of days I could barely move myself from my duvet. It wasn’t great (particularly as Julie was in work, so I was alone and groggy for a lot of it), but at least I know that no stranger has been in my flat for the last week or so. True, I spent a good part of it asleep, but there was no sense of anyone else – there was just sick, old me.
What hasn’t been so reassuring is the dreams. They have been truly fevered and dreadfully weird. The old familiar ones have been replayed again and again – sometimes at high speed, sometimes seemingly all at the same time. But there’ve been new ones as well, detailing in fresh and horrible ways how the world will end. Yet more than that, I’ve had dreams about how things will look when it’s all over. What our world will be after the cataclysm comes, when the survivors try to pick up the pieces and put them back together...

Something is coming and I seem to be getting the previews.

Saturday, 10th of March

I went out for dinner last night with a former flatmate (Catherine) and a loud, Australian friend of hers (Pippa) who I’d never met before.
Catherine has never made any bones about not reading the kind of stuff I write, but this Pippa nearly recoiled in revulsion when told it fell into the ‘horror’ category, (I prefer ‘supernatural thriller’ myself, but I accept that that’s splitting hairs.) So over starter, main course and dessert I was peppered with questions about why on earth I would write that kind of stuff (answer: I’ve always done it); where I get my ideas from (sometimes they are things that happen, sometimes they just come to me); and whether my parents are proud of what I do (of course they are – what kind of question is that?)

The question which stayed most in my mind though was: “Do you ever frighten yourself?”

My answer, given with only the hint of a smile: “Frequently”

Thursday, 8th of March

And so the dreams return. A week ago I felt so happy and confident, as if my dark days were behind me. I see now that these demons haven’t gone anywhere.
Last night I was in the park again, stood there watching Elvina and knowing – from the coldness at the back of my neck – what was going to come next. Clearly the end of the world is on its way, and last night it involved a large mushroom cloud.

Checking back on this blog I see that I didn’t know who the woman beside me was in my initial dream. Now I do know. It’s Alison and she is smiling at me. She’s smiling at me in such a way that shows she knows what’s coming and is seemingly looking forward to it.

I start to panic – a combination of the fear of what’s about to occur and the fact that Alison’s mere presence is so unsettling. But I don’t do anything. I stand there and watch as Elvina arches herself deliciously back in the sunlight. Then at the final moment Alison clutches my fingers and I clutch back. We smile at each other.

And then we go boom.

Wednesday, 7th of March

So where does that leave me?
Well of course I haven’t mentioned it to Julie. Instead I just told her how much fun we had, about the bars we visited and the music we listened to. I think she suspects that I’m being less than candid on the subject of strip clubs, but that’s fine (and what’s expected on a lad’s weekend). She’ll never guess about Alison, and I don’t want to worry or distress her.

Did I dream it? There are moments (particularly if I wake up at four in the morning) when I think I must have hallucinated the whole thing. But then in that instant, I was so certain, so convinced that she was there. And certainly the text was real (I still have it, it clearly came from her phone). I don’t see she could have known in any way that I was going to Budapest, yet somehow she did know – so does that mean she went there as well?

How could she know?

Why would she follow me like that?

The answer to where does that leave me, is confused.

Tuesday, 5th of March

So I had a fun time away in Budapest. I hung out with friends, met friends of friends and we enjoyed all the thrills the city has to offer. We did a lot of drinking, saw some good live music (if our Adele ever disappears, and we don’t mind her replacement having a Hungarian accent, then famous chantuse Toth Vera can easily be dropped into her place) and yes – I admit it – we may have taken in one or two strip shows as well.
It should have been a holiday without a single bad memory; instead – from about halfway through – my blood was chilled. On Friday night we were in a rockabilly bar called Cafe Amigo, watching a really good band called Crazy Cat & The Blue Moons. I was earning the envy of my friends by dancing with a Hungarian Mila Kunis (albeit, a version two stone heavy). Nothing was going to happen as, of course, I have Julie – but it was fun to watch their faces as I spun her around. But then I looked up and standing at the bar was Alison.

I didn’t imagine it, I didn’t hallucinate, it genuinely was her – absolutely and positively. She was dressed in a dark coat and a red beret and she was smiling at me.

At that moment this MIla Kunis girl spun the other way and I lost sight of the bar. When I turned back – only a second or so later – Alison had gone, she just wasn’t there anymore. As swiftly as I could I extricated myself from my dancing partner and changed out to find her. I checked all three floors, looked at the street outside, but couldn’t see her anywhere. And yet I know, absolutely know, that my vanished girlfriend was in that bar in Budapest with me.

For the rest of the weekend, even though I tried to enjoy myself, I could feel her somewhere close by.