From Jester To King VI

-Hello Rabbi.

-Welcome, come in.

-Thank you.

-…

-Shall I start?

-Please do.

-Well I’ve been having really vivid dreams recently. I mean my dreams have always been vivid but these are different, these have a lucidity to them that make them one notch realer than my normal ones. I never thought it was possible, because if someone’d asked me before these new dreams, I’d have told them my previous dreams were indistinguishable from reality. But with these new ones it’s as if there’s absolutely no question that the dream is not real. With the old ones there always seemed to be this perpetual sense going on in the background that what was going on was somehow remote, but I can only say this with the benefit of hindsight. Sometimes this sense was so faint I was hardly aware of it, but I realise now it was there all along. In these new dreams it’s a different plane of reality.

-Any particular one?

-One crazy one last night. I’m in this forest on this camping/adventure excursion as part of a youth club, the ones you go on when you’re around sixteen to eighteen and starting to break out into the wider world and perhaps even starting to get to grips with the notion that you’re the one who’s ultimately responsible for your wellbeing and survival. Having said that it was clear the trip was supervised and that if any harm was to come to us, we’d be more than looked after. But back in this forest there’s no one really with me or around me, no kids or supervisors, although I know that the others are close by and I’m part of a wider group. Also I feel this sense of adventure which is nice. And I know that we’re approaching a border, approaching the end of something, whether it’s the country I’m in, or state, it’s not clear, but there’s this sense that everything will be fine and all I need to do is stay with the group and I’ll be safe and protected.

-Ok.

-And quite soon within minutes, perhaps sooner than I’d have expected, I do get to what seems to be the end of the forest because at the end of the route I’ve been following and all in front of me and perpendicular to the route is a deep ravine which appears to stretch as far as I can make out, and I realise that I won’t be able to go any further than that ravine. There is nothing beyond it.

-Nothing at all?

-Well not as far as I can make out. I can see the muddy edge of the land on my side of it which has fallen away abruptly through erosion. I can see that what once would have been a smooth, rounded and natural edge is now a rough face of mud where mud slides have wrought havoc and cut out chunks of the land making it unstable and dangerous.

-You must be terrified at this point.

-Yes I think so but too pre-occupied to worry about it. I’m only looking really at the little bit of land right in front of me and I don’t really think about going along the edge in either direction to the left or the right of me to see if the land is more solid there, or better yet, find that there is no water to cross and I can just carry on walking across the border without a hitch. And then before even reaching the edge of this final bit of ground, I resolve that I will just wait and accept that I am stuck here and that this will be no big deal.

-Oh. And what about the rest of the group?

-Yeah that’s weird, for some reason I’ve stopped thinking about them.

-Are they there?

-As far as I can remember they’re no longer with me.

-I wonder what changed. Anyway so you just stand and wait? Is that all?

-I have resolved to wait even before finding out exactly what it is I have to contend with.

-Sorry what do you mean by contend with?

-Oh sorry, I mean that it’s almost like I’ve given up and will just have to stay on this side of the border whatever happens.

-Ah, I see. Well there is nothing on the other side anyway isn’t there?

-Yes there was, but when I get closer I notice that it isn’t just a gorge with nothing beyond it, there’s a river, and in the river is a ship, an enormous oil-tanker-sort-of-ship, the absolute epitome of a ship, a ship that every seven year-old would draw for you to show you what a ship really is, with funnel and steam coming out, but not only is this ship absolutely gigantic, I can also make out particular features of it and I’m still not really that near it, for example I see the rivets in its prow, six huge rivets lined up vertically, and the prow is black with a yellow strip just at the very top of it that you get on ships to give that part of the prow a sort of a demarcation or a sense of mis-en-relief, but in any case the sight of the ship is completely overwhelming, not just its size but the sense of it being a vast cold industrial object. I can almost taste the grime and soot, and this place just oozes that shipyard vibe where nothing exists bar the brute functionality of port with its moorings and bollards; there is nothing there that doesn’t speak of industry and construction, and above all the existence of this ultimate indomitable presence (the ship) and you have no idea why it’s there, and you have no control over it either.

-I can actually picture it fairly well, I mean the impression you have of it.

-So then it is obvious that the ship is the thing I need to reach, and the river or sea is the border before it. I then notice three or four big burly men dotted around on the ship; I can’t quite manage to make out exactly where, but they are Charles-Atlas-types, blackened with soot, clutching tools and oversized spanners, and these men act as a sort of an encouragement and pointer to me, an encouragement because somehow they’ve made it across, and as a pointer, because now I know that my destination is where they are now. But to get across I’ll need to do something as drastic as catapult myself over the water, either by using one of the anchors suspended in mid-air on a line from the ship i.e. somehow jumping on one and generating enough momentum to swing myself over, or, jump on to one of the girders that is also simply and inexplicably suspended in mid-air, which girder is much more than just jumping distance away from the shore, in any case getting across will involve a perfectly-timed superhuman leap and then some feat of herculean strength to somehow propel me to safety.

-I see why you’re not keen to budge.

-Exactly and as it dawns on me that I need to get across and that this is the way to do it, I’m frankly more disappointed than scared, as I realise that I’ve already resigned myself to the fact that I won’t or can’t. It’s just plain unfair that the task is so great. Then some other men start trickling through the grass behind me, making me realise that I’m not the only one waiting to get across; and the appearance of these men brings the wood area back to life somehow, and I’m noticing a grassy knoll at the forefront of the forest where these men are springing from and this knoll or glade is more like a conduit or a path and I see these jerky men hiding and crouching through the bushes dotted along this path, and then at some point emerging to haul themselves at exactly the right time onto the anchor to be flung on to the ship. Others emerge and then just choose to wait by the shore instead and there is a tiny gathering of these men who have chosen to bide their time, and I suppose I am with them, waiting.

-Like silent assassins. What are these men like?

-They’re not friendly or unfriendly, but I realise that it’s through them that I’ve come to understand all the factors relating to the question of crossing or not crossing, does that make sense? And although they start by not noticing me much, the longer I stay, the more they seem to want to ask me what I intend to do, and eventually one of the men tells me straight out that I will need to go across. I know what my answer is going to be and knowing there’s no doubt in my mind that I’m not going to try, I feel as if he’ll take it as read and let me off, I have this premonition that people who’ve made up their minds one way or the other aren’t going to be peer-pressured, whether to live, die or suffer where they remain, who knows at this stage.

-So this is a place of suffering? What do the men look like?

-Slavic, macho, they’ve got defined physiques but not hulky ones like the men on the ship; they have this way of talking that suggests that overcoming obstacles is the done thing and the more I feel these men are real men, the more I feel I don’t measure up and that I need to tell them I’m not like them. The man who asks me directly has thick stubble and this glimmer in his pupils like he’s looking straight through me yet despite the intrusion he seems to know that I know he’s imposing himself and that he doesn’t care one way or the other.

-So you want to make an admission without being prompted.

-What admission?

-You are keen to tell him something about yourself, unsolicited.

-Well yes but I thought that was exactly how I was going to get away with it, and—so, haha, I tell him I’m Jewish. But then in the terrible moment where I realise this isn’t a valid excuse and that I’m in even more trouble, I feel once again this simmering sense of unfairness, because not only have I been placed in an invidious position re the jump across the border, I’m also going to be persecuted for what seems to me the perfect excuse.

-One second.

-Sure.

-Sorry, carry on.

-And the other three or four men who’ve been crouching in the bushes deciding if and when they’re going to fling themselves across, well these three men are suddenly upon me, they don’t beat me or anything, they just stifle me somehow and there’s a fierceness to them, and it’s clear that my Jewishness is the exact thing they’d been waiting for me to confess, above and beyond the question of getting across the border.

-Sounds very traumatic.

-It is, but then I get saved in a bizarre twist. It is slightly hazy this bit, no less real though, but I find myself with three or four Russian or Romanian women, all blonde and in office clothes and they must have just tugged me away from the men without a struggle, and before I can catch my bearings we’re in an underground tunnel/corridor which leads to the destination, and this corridor is comfortable and warm and every surface decked out in this thick–pile sludge-coloured carpet, not to mention the almighty relief of being saved from my tormentors, and this corridor turns out to be part of a network of offices and other corporations and these women are leading me to a bank, and as soon as I realise this, I remember I do thankfully have my bank card on me and all I’ll need to do is show it to withdraw money, and I’ll be allowed to go wherever I want to go including this mysterious place on the other side of the river.

-A happy ending of sorts?

-Maybe. The women weren’t condescending or motherly by the way. It was more as if they were showing me I had the capacity to survive on my own without having to risk my life doing it. And I remember thinking even then: how could I have thought only two options existed: 1) broaching a massive chasm by jumping into the void, or 2) just staying forever in a place of despair. And this really rings true, I do feel like I’m constantly fighting in waking life inside a dichotomy of two different imaginary hells, I think that this is what my dream is trying to say, it seems quite obvious really.

-Perhaps.

-Well, what do you think?

-Tell me what you think first.