- 2 - “My headaches were worse the next night, the fact that I wasn’t killed falling off the horse is a miracle. I had another crazy dream; it was once again in Hollywood. I again saw these people and I wondered why they would dress like this. I was again on Hollywood Boulevard and this time around, I waited for something to happen. Something momentous was going to happen and I would be right there. I looked at the large clock down at the big theatre and it was ten minutes to four in the afternoon. At the location where all the film stars left their handprints and names, I saw names that I recognised, but some that I didn’t recognise at all, names I had never heard of. These crazy children, why are all of them dressed like this? Maybe it’s a carnival event or something similar, but it didn’t feel like a carnival. It was rather towards the beginning of spring. There was this noise again, or rather the lack of noise, quietness, quietness, quietness. I asked myself: ‘Do these girls not know that the birds have gone somewhere else?’ The stillness grew and grew. I knew it was going to happen, something was going to happen, it is happening now and once again the nurse woke me up.” * * * “I dreamt again the next night, about places I had been, or rather about places I had not been. I went to the end of the world and back. I went to the end of the world and there was nowhere left to go, not even this hospital. If only my eyes were a little clearer so that I could write all of this down. Nobody will believe me anyway. I went back to my last moments at the Boulevard. A sweet child walked past, a girl. She had small boys in tow, one on each hand. Her skirt was rather short and she looked tired. For a moment I thought that I could ask her about the birds and about what had happened, but then I remembered that she couldn’t see me. Her hair was completely frizzed and it stood on end all over her head. A lot of people that I saw looked like this, but she looked ever so tired and as if she was sad about something. I assume that she was sad before it happened, because it must have surely happened. There was a strange odour in the air. I didn’t know where it came from. I didn’t like this odour, because it smelled like sulphur or sulfuric acid, it smelled of death. For a moment I thought that I was back in a chemistry lesson. When I looked around I found that the girl had disappeared. For some reason or another I wanted to find her again. It was as if I knew that something would happen and I wanted to be with her and help her, but she had gone away. I walked for half a block and I saw the clock once again. My eyes seemed to be glued to the clock. It was fife to four on a sunny afternoon. I thought that I would stand here forever and just look at the clock, waiting for something to happen. Then, when it happened, it was nothing much. It certainly wasn’t as powerful as the earthquake we had two years ago. The earth only shook for a moment. People looked at each other in surprise and then they laughed. I also laughed, so this is what I had been waiting for, this little tremor, it meant nothing. I was relieved, but also disappointed. What had I been waiting for? I went back to the Boulevard and tried to move my legs the way these children did. I didn’t find out how they did it. I felt as if the ground beneath my feet was not solid. I knew that I was dreaming, but I wasn’t dreaming. And then there was this odour again, it came like an ocean. I saw the expressions on the children’s faces, two of them came towards me, both with beards and both with earrings. One of
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