A Paradigm of Earth (21 page)

journal:

Went into the bathroom to discover that Delany had left the lid off the toothpaste again—that bitch, she thinks cuz John does it she can get away with it—one of these days gonna get my jam together to tell her she’s just being lazy—I get so fucking infuriated when she does something shabby like that—cheating—looking to get away with something

Talk about getting away with something, Blue was pushing the dream issue again today and this time I think John is getting interested—but not like Blue wants—John wants the whole thing for his vid/doc—he wants Jakob to do the dreaming, and John wants to put four cameras in the room—he says it’s the best segment he’s conceived—watching the interface of the human subpsyche with the alien whatever—he hasn’t paid enough real attention to Blue to know what the “whatever” will be yet-don’t know why I should object—the whole thing just a circus anyhow—Mounties here today digging up Dundee or was it Seville—hard to tell—they called it exhuming—Blue wanted to know if all burials are temporary—none of our customs so far had revealed this interesting fact—envisioning some sort of galactic postgrad thesis being formed and shattered I said no and started a course of Lord Peter Wimsey—the natural successor to Klaatu?—we’ll see what the galactic sensibilities make of the detective genre—the whole thing is a joke—I’m getting so sick of tripping over microphones—if it’s not CSIS it’s John—apparently the city cops tried to get into the investigation because of some anonymous hate mail, but Mr. Grey invoked national security of course—all gossip and rumours-we seem to live in a house of rumors—our real life suspended for the duration

Not to speak of the fact that with all these cops around my intentions to resume my sex life are shot to hell—even considered going to the Women’s Dance tonight but as soon as I mentioned it Blue wanted to go and the RCMP stepped in and said they couldn’t guarantee Blue’s safety and so on and so on—and even if we had gone this kind of spotlight does not facilitate groupies

Blue wants to know what the procedure will be if the police keep on believing Blue did it—in this case the blind leading the blind—I can’t imagine—my head keeps going around and around—I can’t believe Blue had anything to do with it—all these xenophobes—but I keep remembering Blue was awake, out of the room, and one moment of reassurance isn’t a hell of a lot

All this energy goes nowhere—Jakob has the right idea—John too—just keep doing their thing—Jakob plans to “sleep Blue”, as he calls it, next week—now he tells me that they weren’t dancing, that night, they were trying to share dreams but no dreams ensued, he said, because the turmoil outside woke him up too soon—but how do they know-without a REM monitor—Blue certainly couldn’t describe a dream though seems to have taken to the concept with enthusiasm—that’s what this brouhaha is all about, teaching Blue the dream world—how would Blue know a dream if one appeared, anyway?

I dreamed that Blue was in jail 7 guess but instead of bars it was a long leash that kept hands away from everyone s/he tried to touch just by a few cm—torture—I was the lawyer and I couldn’t talk—trying to force the works—Blue looking like death warmed over and sort of wilting like a fun house mirror or an old Star Trek monster fog—shit—woke up in the usual state—got up to pee and Blue was in the bay window in the staircase in the dark watching the moon

Said, I can walk on there, but I came here instead

I said, are you sorry?

Blue said, sorry? I am not allowed to be sorry

Big silence

Then, are you going to let me dream you?

If this keeps up I am going to do it, for sure. what could be worse? This is the craziest seduction scene I’ve ever been in. Just mumbled something but it took a couple of hours to get some sleep