Flow

There’s an alley I used to go down in a town I grew up in, which linked Chinatown to the main mall. There was also another lane which linked a main street to an underground bus stop complex, which I used regularly as well.

In dreams, these two well worn locations have been entangled, so that there’s a dream geography place I visit in Chinatown, with amazing food restaurants that feel so familiar - one in particular has these great handmade noodles in a silky chilli soup, and it’s always open late, fake bamboo out the front, on a dark night, with red lanterns. And indoors is empty but they always have the soup ready.

Sometimes I go in, other times I wait out front talking with friends, and other times I order iced fruit tea from the late night iced tea bar. It’s so familiar to me I just find myself there again and again.

There’s also alleys off this alley - and apart from one that leads somewhere back into the other mall - they are really best avoided. They’re just as dark, they do have shops, but these alleys have knives and shadows at tables who always get up.

I’ve had so many good times in the main Chinatown alley, so many repetitive moments of just passing through to a bus, late nights with noodles or soup, those in-between-the-action moments that never make the highlights reel of dreams.

It’s like: finding sustenance in the shadows, friends in the dark, safety in a place where safety isn’t guaranteed. It’s the edgelands and the borders. Chinatown isn’t ever the cleanest place, but it can be the most real place.

And then the shadows. They’ve been violent, they’ve attacked people close to me, I’ve run from them many times. The other night I turned and ran again as three of them slowly turned and smiled my way. Banging back through a metal door off the alley, a black cat watched me like he’d warned me, like he’d just told me to ask for help.

In this dream, the person I asked for help, the black cat’s owner, was in a boudoir in a warehouse complex, and she was unflappable. She said, “go out the other way”.

The answer is laughable, I guess the river doesn’t pile up in frustration, trying to convince the boulder it needs to go through it.

Ask for help

Go the other way

The dream didn’t play out going the other way, that was for when I woke up.