an impish dream

The heavy door was locked and students were at the mercy of a wicked school mistress, robed in grey like a nun, yet whose dress combined strange austerity with Victorian lace. She ordered everyone to climb the stairs. I was among the students, yet without feeling I belonged there. The stairwell was made of wood: beautiful carved balustrades, tall columns at each bend, warm wooden paneling with painted motifs high up by the ceiling. There were no windows and I couldn't tell the source of light, yet the stairwell was not dark but bathed in uniform orange light that made the wood seem even warmer. The climb was interminable, and I didn't enjoy the beauty of the carvings or the wooden lacework. Even though I wasn't tired, each step filled me with despair: it would never end. And when it seemed that we might be closer to the top, the stairs would suddenly descend a flight, only to start climbing up again. As if we were trapped in an Escher drawing.

Finally, we reached a landing where a large set of glassed doors swung open. The stairs, however, continued on, and three students kept on climbing, as if in a daze, while the rest of the "class" walked out through the door. I stayed on the landing. I knew that the stairs led into a trap and I needed to rescue the three girls.

Suddenly, one of them tumbled back down. She was Asian and I seemed to know her in the dream, as I did other students, although there were no faces familiar from real life. The girl cowered on the floor and buried her face in her hands. She cried out in a moaning voice, unintelligibly describing the horrors she'd been through, then asked: "How long have I been away?"

"Only a moment," I answered. "No, no," she moaned again, "it's been a hundred years, a hundred years." I noticed a school notebook on the floor next to her. I opened it: it was a diary she kept while away: it was filled cover to cover, and backwards again using any available space.

At that moment, an imp appeared. He was a rather short, perhaps 4ft tall man, with a face that was neither ugly nor handsome, dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard. I do not remember our exact conversation. I made a bargain with him and agreed to go to his world in exchange for the lives of the two other girls. He touched my arm, and the stairwell disappeared. We were now in a painting: a world painted with pastel crayons, in vivid reds and yellows, with visible traits of sketched lines and strokes. The imp was now a devilish character, his face a red mask with lips curved downwards and ending in a small half-spiral in either corner of his mouth. He also had two sets of horns. His appearance didn't make him any more frightening. Rather, there was a sense he merely adapted his looks to the surroundings and by putting on this devilish mask he was playing with his audience's expectations. The two other girls were there, as well. The imp was now very powerful and able to control our bodies. I attempted to reason with him: "You could easily kill us," I said, "but if we're dead, there won't be anyone to admire how powerful you are."

I am not sure whether my argument worked. Suddenly, I was back in the "real world." The imp had been arrested and was now sitting in the back of a police car. In the front, a policeman and a policewoman were asking him questions. The man was trying to convince his partner to be less gentle with their prisoner because it "was the most evil creature that ever lived." The woman, on the other hand, had hard time believing that. The imp wasn't either a man nor a cartoon devil anymore, but a beautiful woman dressed as a prostitute. He easily played with the policewoman's feelings. In a sugared, uncanny cadence, he said: "Oh, now I understand, thank you for rescuing me!"

I wasn't really present at the scene. It was as if I were an omniscient observer: able to see the imp from the front seat of the car, as well as the police car from the outside. Now the car door was pulled shut and I was looking inside through the back passenger window. The imp turned towards me and once more I saw the male face. He smiled slyly and said: "They won't hold me long."