The existence of lip-reading proves that there is more than one alphabet in a language.

A scene witnessed on the metro: an older man, befriended by a little girl, getting back on board because she was all in tears to see him go. Two stops later, he really had to get off. The five-year-old cried and cried; her mom apologized all around, explaining that this was not her daddy... As far as I understood, he was just a stranger passing through.

dream

T & I can't agree on where it is exactly that we are supposed to meet. We pore over some maps: Turkey, Armenia, Usbekistan; call out city names, possible rendez-vous coordinates, but nothing's clear, and as soon as one understand what the other's saying, the other has already changed his/her mind. Yet, as if an agreement has been reached independently of us, we find ourselves in the delta of the Loire river [not an actual place]. The delta is vast but shallow. At the very mouth of the river, there used to be a town, with narrow streets and old houses [their architecture resembling rather some little towns in Kentucky than France]. The town had been dying for some time: the factories shut down and people were abandoning their homes. The government was planning to revitalize the town, but then the river altered its course and the town found itself submerged by the new delta. T had been here before: he pointed out a shallow path where one could walk safely. Beneath my feet, a former road, I can feel the pavement, and even though the water is here barely above my ankles, I can see some houses under water up to their rooftops. T makes some remark that seems awfully funny in the dream. Something like: 'People who live in wet houses shouldn't leave their matches on the doorstep'. We decide to impart this wise advise to some remaining residents. T knocks on a door while I'm trying to control my laughter. A woman opens and lets us right in, not listening to what we have to say. Her nonchalant trust astounds me.

who are we when, unbeknownst to us, we enter other people's dreams?

the "origami bug" dream

I'm at my parents' house. There's someone my mother calls my "boyfriend" and who is obviously gay, his hair died black, gesticulating wildly: my mother is charmed, my father is sitting in another room, disapproving, sullen. I flee the scene and go upstairs. In one of the rooms, there is a blue beetle hovering over the table. It alights on the edge. I recognize him: it's the origami bug. Its "shell" is an intricately folded castle, ship, and it's blue. Such blue*! ... The origami bug never stays still for too long, but when it pauses, it is as if time slowed down. He has something to say, he will speak to me. Now it reclines on one side, propping its head on its insect elbow, its black limbs with knobby joints. It's wearing a blue hat. ... My mother comes in, with the "boyfriend" trailing behind, their presence undesired. She tries to capture the bug. I protest: she must not touch it, it must be free. The beetle slips between her fingers. Now it lies on its back like a little cat ready to be pet on its belly. Now it unfolds its "origami": tiny delicate petals folded one over the next. Only the black "paws" are showing. The bottom petals lie flat. One can see a nearly translucent underside of the bug, with its little veins, like a blue membrane.

* It is recognizably, the Yves Klein blue.

dream

I was staying at a hotel. With a dog. I suspected the dog all along of trying to manage me. He gave me a bed in the center of the middle room, like an isolated island. With my glasses off, I observed strange movements taking place on another bed set against the wall, beneath a mirror. There were things crawling out from behind the mirror, from under the bed: tropical spiders, hairy, and swift if needed. Even on my bed, there were little furry balls, small as the breath of a bird. The dog would brush them off and tell me that these are dust bunnies. I think I slept in that bed, in that dream. When I woke up, I called the hotel service. Women in aprons came with buckets of antiseptic. Whenever a spider came out, they would grab it and inject it with poison. When they were gone, I felt relieved.

I started moving furniture around. That made me feel more "at home," and I thought it was ok for me to stay here for a while. As i was moving some shelves, a woman and a man came in, something to do with my finances, I think. I tried to maneuver a bookshelf around them when I noticed two insects fighting on top of a book. I had to bring my face quite close to them to realize that these were two scorpions.

[notes on the dream]:
The dog was a traitor. He was "managing" my myopia.
The hotel room was rich in colors, Indian decor: cushions, hand-painted wooden furniture, colored walls, floral rugs, green, red, sienna, chestnut, orange, thick colors. The insects had very distinct bodies. The furry things called "a bird's breath" made little squeaky noises as they scurried about. The scorpions were the color of dark sand. All insects were easily camouflaged in the patterned fabrics. The strange couple were stern and soberly dressed. The man in a suit. They carried on about my affairs without paying the slightest attention to my presence.

I was a wolf in this dream, escorted by others to an appointment at an old lady's house. The doorbell rang in changing sequences of repeated tones. I pressed it again, out of curiosity. The woman stood discontent in the doorway as the bell chimed its melodies till the end. The wall and the door were covered with szlaczki* and, trying to relieve the tense atmosphere, I mumbled something about the similitude of the doorbell tune and the repetitive graphic patterns.

The woman wore a scarf bordered with golden sequins over her head, and held a half-unwrapped gift in her hand. She reproached me for having emailed her only yesterday and added that the gift arrived only today. Indeed, I felt a tinge of guilt over my poor communication skills, but I explained that I wanted her to receive the gift before sending an electronic message. She seemed a bit placated by this explanation, and invited us inside.

Us included me and other animals. I remember an owl and a fox. We sat at a coffee table and had tea poured out of porcelain tea pot. I committed other faux pas, although I cannot quite remember what exactly infuriated my host. Soon, however, the tea party turned into a persecution as I was chased by the fox around the room. My limp was a great disadvantage. I must have limped for a long time. Yet, suddenly, cornered between the couch and the coffee table, I realized that the pebble -- or something that felt like one -- that caused the limp had disappeared. Free to run, I took to my heels. I swore to bring all other wolves from the forest, and shouted a parting threat: "This was the last party in the history of the Western civilization."

*) szlaczki are repetitive patterns used by Polish children to decorate their notebooks. The wall & the door in my dream were covered with rows and rows of such patterns, each row forming its own distinctive band, drawn in black and white.

serait-il possible que, après la saison de la mort, vienne la saison du vivant?