This
is my siesta dream. One siesta dream. Today’s siesta dream, as the windows hold
off the sun on the sun side and sleep has happened so that it is not possible
to say here we are in sleep’s hold, as dream keeps happening in diverse diversions.
Lunch has receded from mind. Plans for the summer have turned into hopes. They
are listed in diaries and backs of envelopes and on folded lengths of paper the
length of a small dream inside a long dream. There is shade cloth to put into
position, herb beds to save, and fallen timber to bundle for hard green
collection. The garden is a yet more unfinished challenge than can be remembered.
To look quietly upon the heaps of fallen wattle pods raked and layered over the
ground is to follow the torn contours where beaks have picked out miniscule seeds;
the brittle serrations where wind has blown them from the heights; and the pink
turning to brown or turned brown and black some places where the sun has
weathered them through. It is the realisation that the sun can kill. In my
siesta dream it becomes critical to record this fact about the sun. The truth
of this discovery must be circulated widely for general awareness. Further
evidence is collected, much of it in broad daylight: suffering daisy bushes,
pinched leaves, dusty grass. It must be written down at once in clear language.
The result of all that writerly effort must then be broadcast widely, which is
why effective expression is required. A location must be found to write down
the words about how the sun kills. One option is a large French palace with
stupendous chandeliers, dove-grey corridors leading everywhere to the vanishing
point, a harpsichord, and other hand-me-downs of French palaces. Words are
forming about how the sun kills. Other locations include the attic of a lofty
apartment building decorated with Bohemian floral motifs, once used by an
interwar writer who could not decide between black ink and typewriter ribbons.
And a red Australian beach box reconverted for writerly purposes, lined inside with
books about solar radiation and how to swim, its square view uninterrupted towards
sunny horizons. Being a dream, the choice is made for me, which finds me
writing in the palace drawing room, as if lives depended upon it, the sun
kills. Flowers, that in reality spread gloriously a week, fray, shrivel, and
die thanks to the sun. They get worried out of their skins, and they are not alone
in this respect. We ourselves are not immune. The writing continues in this
vein for some time, reinforcing the main point. Such is the negative vibe this
generates, so great is the heat being produced, I must wake up immediately as
it is all getting too much.
