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.