Duckboards in swamp

The Swamp Walk

   Dream Journal

I AM AT A BIBLE STUDY GROUP FOR JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES. It is being held in what looks like my house in Wirksworth, but I am told it’s “Helen’s house”. My ex-wife is there. She confesses to the group that she had sex with two of my friends—Paul and Jon—while we were still married. Two guys arrive to fit a kitchen. I think one of them is Paul so I go to confront him, but it’s not him. The kitchen fitters know Paul so I tell them he had sex with my then wife—96 times in four weeks! I return to the group. Helen has just asked my ex-wife to leave. My ex-wife is wearing a blonde wig and a dressing gown. She is smoking a cigarette. As she leaves she says, “I don’t care anymore!”

We leave and walk to another house at the other end of town. It’s Helen’s house again. We enter a dark and dingy room with old pink sofas. I realise I’m disfellowshipped and no one will talk to me. I go through a door in the corner of the room. It leads to a flight of stairs to the floor above. I sit at the bottom of the stairs for a while. There is a rolled up carpet and lots of cardboard boxes on the stairs. I fly over them to the top of the stairs. Upstairs feels haunted so I fly back down. On the way down I see a dead dog hidden behind the rolled up carpet. I walk into the room of Jehovah’s Witnesses and say, “Did you know there is a dead dog in there?” Helen says we are on the wrong floor and we need to leave.

Everyone leaves Helen’s house and I fly around outside for a while. A young lad called Isaac tells me the surrounding countryside is being auctioned off with a guide price of only £1200. He wants to bid on it. I tell him he should only bid if he has twice the amount of money in the bank. Alternatively, he should consider a bank loan so it’s tax deductible. The auction starts. It turns out the guide price was £120,000. In the end the land sells for £220,000. Isaac is disappointed. I tell him he never stood a chance of winning.

Everyone starts walking back to the first house but this time we walk for miles and miles. We walk through forests, over hills, around lakes, and across wooden duckboards winding through alligator-filled swamps. I ask someone, “Is this the High Peak Trail?” and they reply, “No”. Then the new owner of the countryside turns up and says, “I have plans.” 

We come across a small brick hut. My ex-wife appears and tells me it belongs to her. She shows me inside then walks away leaving it unlocked.

The group continues to walk through the swampland. I get talking to a woman with a German name. We stop for a rest and I lay down on a wooden duckboard. It begins to sink into the swamp. I get soaking wet and my phone is ruined. The woman pulls me out of the water. Her soon-to-be ex-husband appears. He tells me not to talk to her and threatens to hurt me if I do. I pick him up, fly over the edge of a cliff and drop him to the ground. As he falls he turns into an eagle and flies back up to me. Then he turns back into a man and goes to attack his wife but she turns into a small handbag. I pick up the woman-cum-handbag and fly away. The husband turns back into an eagle and chases after us. He grabs onto her in mid-flight and pulls her from my grasp, but she turns into a rope and falls to the ground. Then she turns into a plate of gold. I swoop down, pick her up, and fly off.

Eventually we reach a town. The man in charge of the town bears an uncanny likeness to Robert Downey Jr. He tells me, “This is a town that builds technology.” There are lots of people sitting around a large table making models from sheets of card. I join them and start making a TV out of card and silver foil. The room gets very hot. A woman from admin appears. I ask if we can have the door open. She turns the air conditioning on. 

Robert Downey Jr. hands me a shaver. I can’t figure out how it works. The guy opposite me has a look. He adds a tweezer attachment. “That won’t work,” I tell him. I take the shaver back and try it on my arm hair. It cuts my skin. An Indian guy says he knows how it works. He makes some adjustments, adding some larger blades. The guy opposite me tries it again but it cuts him badly. Blood starts pouring out of his arm. I grab a first aid kit and start bandaging his arm but the bandages are too big and unwieldy and keep unravelling. I apply bandages over bandages but he is still bleeding out. I tie a blue conforming bandage over the top in an attempt to stop the blood. It’s a mess, and the guy is still bleeding badly. He looks pale and says he can’t breathe so I tie a tourniquet to the top of his arm and shout to another first aider, “Call an ambulance! And get me a proper first aid kit!” I remove the bandages from the guy’s arm and see no visible cut. The bleeding seems to have stopped. I re-bandage his arm properly. The woman from admin comes over to see what’s happening. I tell her, “You can assess my bandaging if you like!”