In this dream, I am
with a man that does not look familiar to me. We are standing on the
edge of a lagoon. Looking into the distance, there are different
shades of turqouise and green that indicate the varying depths of the lagoon.
Mountains surround us on all sides and we cannot see the edge of the
lagoon.
We wade into the
lagoon, laughing and chatting. He tells me that if we keep going
across the lagoon, the sea is on the other side. This seems
improbable to me because of how far it looks, but we wade in deeper
until the water is up to our chests.
He reaches out to me
and tells me gently we must swim now. He says we don’t have to swim
very fast, and that we will get there in good time. We continue to
chat as we paddle leisurely into the distance. I cannot see any end
to the lagoon, and at several moments feel slightly panicky that I
will not be able to last the distance.
My arms and legs
start to burn and I feel like I’m running out of energy. I look
down and the lagoon seems impossibly deep at that point – no bottom
is visible and there is no chance of stopping. The man is somewhat
ahead of me now, calling out encouragements for me to keep going.
Just when I feel
like I cannot swim anymore, I see the green lighten up and a sandy
bottom comes into view. I step down and feel the soft firmness of the
ground with much relief. When I look up, it is indeed as he promised
– the ocean is not far, the waves lapping at a sandy beach.
Along the beach is a
small and quiet road, on which there are no vehicles. He leads me
into a shack, which serves as a restaurant. A few tables and chairs
are scattered around, but there is no one else there except us.
A lady comes out
from the kitchen and greets the man warmly. He seems to have
been here before. We sit dripping on the chairs, watching the waves
crash onto the beach right in front of us. Soon the lady brings a
platter of fried fish and two big schooners of beer. I bite into the
fish and the batter is extremely thin and crisp. With the shattering
of batter in my mouth, I taste the freshest fish I have ever tasted.
It is something utterly indescribable. The white flesh simply melts
onto my tongue and I am filled with an overwhelming sensation of bliss.
We finish our
platter, gobbling down the fillets hungrily and drinking the extra refreshing beer. The lady comes out again
and smiles at us. Without a word, we stand up and walk across the
road to the beach. Standing on the sand, the man tells me that we
must swim across the ocean to the next lagoon.
Trust me, he
says, the ocean ends in a lagoon.
I
ask him if it is the same lagoon we came from, and he says no. At
that moment I realise that the man has aged, perhaps by about a
decade from his 40s into his 50s.
I
ask him if there is another option, whether we could stay on this
beach for a while. He looks extremely solemn for a moment, then says
gently that there is no option but to continue.
People are
following us now, he says.
We
step into the ocean and it feels totally different to the lagoon.
Where the water had been still and warm, the waves of the ocean are
cold and moving. The water laps at us constantly, almost violent in
its saltiness.
We
are no longer chatting as we swim against the current. I feel my
lungs burn as I struggle. I cannot keep up with the man as he swims
further ahead. When I look back briefly, the shore is no longer in
view – how could we have swum so far already?
I
almost lose sight of the man, but somehow always manage to keep track
of his back, bobbing up and
down in the waves.
Don’t waves get
more gentle as you get away from the sand? I
think to myself, but I am struggling too much to even contemplate the
answer to this question.
Then,
as suddenly as the ocean had come into view, the water changes all
around us and we are in a lagoon again. The waves vanish abruptly and the
world is completely silent. Even the sound of our arms and legs
moving in water disappears. All is still.
I
am absolutely exhausted, but again just as I feel like I am taking my
last stroke, the water lightens and I recognise it as the edge of the
lagoon approaching. I stand up in the shallow water, barely able to
walk.
I
stumble across the last few dozen metres till I am standing on land
again. The man is waiting, facing me as I take those steps. As I get
closer I realise he is older again, perhaps in his 60s now.
If he has aged
like this across the water, what age am I now?
I think to myself.
He
takes my hand and lets me lean on him a little as we walk down a dirt
path, till we come to an identical shack to the one on the beach. Is
it actually the same shack? I wonder to myself.
We
sit down again, the tables and chairs arranged in a different fashion
in this shack. The same lady comes out and serves us fish and beer.
This fish tastes different to the phenomenal fish we ate at the beach though. The wonders of the crisp batter
and the soft flesh fail to strike me as strongly as the previous
time.
It is as if, the glitz has been lost.
The
man is silent now, and all that fills the shack is the sound of our
eating. I suddenly see something out of the corner of my eye, and it
is a musical phrase written on the placemat.
It
goes something like, 2 quavers (slurred), 2 quavers, minim, 2 quavers (slurred). I
realise that this is a significant motif, but I cannot figure it out.
The minim must be where we are now, I decide.
Then
I wake up.
