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The Missing

A child carries missing in her hands.

She picked it up way back at the crossroads.

It has blood in its feathers

and dust on its head

and she shields it from the sun

as she walks.

After travelling for many days

she meets an old woman on the road.

‘Your missing needs to eat’, the woman says,

peering into the child’s cupped hands.

‘You’ll have to dig for worms.

Not here; further down the road

where the sun is not so harsh

and the soil is richer.’

The woman brushes blood from her wings

and flies away, leaving the child

with missing in her hands.

The child walks on for many weeks

then meets an old man on the road.

The old man grabs the child’s hands

and uncurls them

‘Your missing needs a nest,’ he says.

‘You’ll have to build one.

Not here; further down the road

where the drought has broken

and the trees are stronger.’

The man brushes the dust from his sleek head

and flies away, leaving the child

with missing in her hands.

The child walks on for months, and then years

until she meets a young boy on the road.

The boy holds his hands out to hers.

‘You need somewhere to rest,’ he says.

Your hands are sore and your feet are numb.

You need food, and water,

and a place to lay the missing down.’

The child opens her hands

and the boy hops in, light as a bird.

‘You are my missing’, says the child.

The missing leaps to her face

and pecks out her eyes. 

I dreamed that I am some kind of monster, jailed in perpetuity in a small eighth-storey apartment that has been converted into empty darkness to hold me. I am being tortured by the jailer shoving its forearm up into my solar plexus. This is in the dark, in eternal time. In a small cell in what would be the apartment's kitchen/service area. Eventually, in another phase, I am released into what would the living areas, larger rooms. I am to fight for my life here, moving up and down in the dark, doing my best to slash and kill whatever is out there at my periphery. Maybe a staged attempt at escape? The jailer is going to get me for this and is coming closer. Knives and dismemberment. For a long period I am moving up and down with one of my arms spinning a chair around and around to ward off the jailer, while I scream a horrible continuous scream. This is a prelude to the real torture.

so many dreams last night.

in one I was going to run a marathon in high-heeled shoes. I was at a house with lots of out-buildings and a couple of them were sheds or workshops full of shoes. I was looking for the right ones - very vibrant, to represent a cause I wanted to stand for. Vivid green and mauve, maybe Comme Il Faut, but I couldn't find them. I was going through this huge collection of shoes, none right - most pretty worn, drab, black, some with mildew, many turned out to not be mine - a child's pair of sneaker's, my sister's shoes, my step-sister's shoes. 

I transcribed my dream this morning, then got up and we went to see M. Halfway through the session she said to us - 'it's like no one is driving your car'. She did this once before, too, when I had been obsessively taking photos of trees for a couple of weeks - although I didn't mention it,  every image she used that day was to do with trees.

I have come to think of this kind of thing as a certain kind of normal, but important. I pay attention.

Someone else writes about this here: strange dreams.

dreamed we were living at the top of P rd/ end of Htoun St. We decided to have a wedding dinner, at Christmas. I rang up this guy I met once (in the dream) - I'd hung out with him and Charlie one night before Charlie died. He's a ceramic artist and I think he is really attractive. I want him to do 20 centrepiece plates for the tables, and maybe a kind of ornament to sit in the plates with other things, wedding favours. I'm explaining what I want on the phone but I don't have the words exactly. He asks how I got his number and I say actually we met once, at Htoun St, years ago. As soon as he knows who I am he starts saying 'Oh you're the one I've been getting all these calls from. Why are you ringing me all the time?'

I say 'What? I only rang you once the other day, but you weren't there.'

He says 'But I've seen this number come up over and over again for years, I never knew who it was, you call me repeatedly and it's really very weird.'

I am starting to feel hugely embarrassed, it's true that I have tried to get in touch once in a while since met him. I say, 'I just really like your work, I thought we could use it, I only called once the other day. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable.'

N has walked in and I'm trying not to say too much because he's listening. But he can hear the nature of the conversation and he's sniggering at me, pointing.

The guy on the phone says 'Oh bullshit, I met you once years ago and you've turned into some weird thing, it's not normal, you don't call up T and K, or H.'

That's also true I realise, I know I met those people too but I don't remember them.

He goes on telling me off, me feeling more and more humiliated. He's angry that I've intruded, but more scornful, mocking. I'm like a stalker. I'm trying to think of normal comparisons to explain myself but it's futile and with N listening I just say See ya and hang up.

Then I'm out on P Road and I see our car stopped at the lights. It's old- like a 1950s Ford Anglia, matte black with silver trim, not fancy. The lights change and the rest of the traffic moves off. I realise no one is in our car, it's just been left there, parked in the wrong place, so I should get in and get it off the road. I have a pair of pointe shoes in a bag in my hand; I open the passenger door thinking I'll put the pointe shoes in then get in to drive. But it turns out there are people in the car after all - a middle-aged Italian man is driving, there's a couple in the back. The driver says 'No, no, no, No frozen goods in here.' I can't put the shoes in; it's not our car.

I turn to go home and I see my dad step out of some shrubs. His hair is damp and he's lost weight. He's really happy to see me. He's been having dinner with my stepmum and my niece and nephew in the garden of the restaurant next door. They've come to visit and they are all having a really nice time. 

dreamed N and I were moving in to my stepdad's family home in Ham. My parents were there, friendly and supportive as we get stuff  sorted out. B is there too, in the middle of a psychotic episode but also quite chilled out.

I have a short argument with my stepdad. Somewhere in it he makes a joke about me being raped. It's more disrespectful and kind of aggressive than threatening. Later in the dream I come back to this, realising I need to just tell him (so I do) how unpleasant and upsetting it is, and that I don't want it to happen again. Saying this ends this problem and episode, to my surprise, so that for a moment the dream is just dark for a scene change.

Earlier in the dream I start to fight with N. He gets wild almost immediately, we're screaming at each other, right in front of my parents and B. I decide not to try to hide it. Eventually he goes into the bedroom and comes out with a pack and a bunch of stuff - he's leaving me and going back to the old place. I'm relieved, I say good, go! and I shove him off. I think, though, that once he's calmed down we'll end up sorting it out.

But soon he comes back, I see a rifle barrel pointing at me. I'm terrified, I grab my stepdad and pull him down to hide. I try to get everyone else down too. I feel sick, I know this is the end, that we  can't come back from this because he will end up in a psych ward.

Out the front is a verandah and/or car full of women and girls from my stepdad's family (his sisters, their daughters, babies), happy and chatting despite the circumstances. I don't know where N is but I am saying it's best if they get away from here. We're in the car driving away. I'm going to be dropped off somewhere, not sure if I'm trying to find N, go back to the old house to get something or I'm just accidentally in the car. But I need to get out or I'll lose my sense of direction. There are heaps of us in the back crammed in. I need to get out. One of the little girls hands one of the babies back to her mother because we need to move around so I can get out of the car. but she doesn't support the baby's head as she passes it on and it flops backward. Maybe the baby's damaged. The mother tuts, so dangerous.

If we go any further I'll be lost. We stop towards the bottom of a steep tunnel and I get out. I think I know the way back from here . I turn and start walking back up the tunnel. There is a pedestrian path painted in on the left hand side, I go there. There's also a sign up saying NO PEDESTRIANS. I'm going to walk it but I realise that if  a car comes around the tunnel's corner at a clip I'll be wiped out. I feel like someone's watching to see if I follow the rules.

I turn and walk back down the tunnel, thinking I'll have to find another way up the hill, hopefully without getting too lost. The tunnel opens into a street at the bottom of a very narrow valley, with very steep, high reinforced embankments on the facing side. I glance up. there are military guys in cammo posted up there, watching. In the centre, way up, there's an old kuia with a full face moko, regal and full of judgement, gazing down. I look away quickly. I turn to my right, think I'll find a way up over here. It's so steep and none of the streets lead in a direction parallel to the tunnel. I am going to get hepelessly lost. there are soldiers up above, everywhere, and threatening looking civilian guys. I decide on a street to take but soon realise that it leads up through the grounds of a psych hospital.