ignis fatuus
I haven't been posting very much since the weekend, have I? It's difficult to fit it all in, what with my twelve or thirteen hours a day of sleep. I visited a doc and asked about the 'insomnia' (ie, not bothering to go to bed, more than not wanting to go to bed).
Voila! From a two hours a night girl, now I sleep all the time.
On the upside, I do look about five years younger suddenly. On the weird side, I dream more often than I actually do anything. So currently, I'm either looking at houses I might buy, listening to the mutant ten foot squirrels in the attic (they were moving their sideboard to the other side of the nest this morning, by the sound of it), or I'm dreaming about being trapped in the houses I just looked at.
I've been trying to look at weird places to live only, reasoning that the fact I don't require an over-bleached hypoallergenic kitchen or a sodding yellow-ducky-covered baby-room makes me a more powerful buyer.
Yesterday I looked at this one place, and it had a converted attic. Not tall enough to stand in, but it had been made into a living space all the same, with a scary fifteen foot shaky ladder to get there. The building itself was very old and tall, and the upper levels of the place had to fit inside a very gothic exterior - turrets and things, you know?
Therefore its attic was in the shape of a three branched cross, and sloping ceilings tipped and careened off dramatically on each branch of the crucible. Yes, like a crypt would do.
The flat downstairs had been cluttered by animal effigies made out of dried twigs tied together, and the owner seemed to have a predilection for adding beds in odd places - notably on suspended platforms one foot from the ceiling in each room. (But there's no accounting for taste, and I'm sure my own liking for late fifties decor isn't to everybody's fancy, either.)
The crypt - sorry, attic - was painted a deep blood red, lit by a single dicoloured light bulb near the trap door. On branch right of the triptych, a mini computer hole - weird. Remember, there's not enough room to do more than crouch or crawl up here. (That's exactly how I'd assume most people experience the net - immured in a murky chthonic hellhole in an overly religious unlit attic.)
Branch left of the triptych, loads of junk, a few signs of mice.
Normal.
The third arm of the triptych was an altar. With a bed on it.
I've lived (a whole decade ago) with priests and monks. I'm already accustomed to secret rooms beneath the wainscoting that conceal furtive altars (usually of a variant religion to the one that's meant to be practised).
This wasn't any Christian altar. It wasn't any of the big seven religions. Suddenly the nearness of the Meridian Line, the striking views of the park and the Thames, but particularly all those home-lashed twig stags that littered the hallway seemed to have a deeper meaning.
For twelve hour's dreamtime last night I lived in a blind phantasm of that house, in that sinister garret room.
All I shall say is that my shabbytat furniture didn't match.
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Updated: Wednesday, 26 November 2003 7:43 AM GMT
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