Last night I dreamed the murder of a woman. I was not the
murderer or the woman who died, but I was everyone else. I
wrote the screenplay that started it all. I was director of this
long and terrible sequence. I was also the camera operator,
sliding along one of those dollies, my shoulders high and my
teeth clenched with the effort of the single take.
A parable cuts through normalcy to make a moral point, but in
my dream there was no moment of dread at the beginning
and no feeling that something good would happen at the end.
The man who killed the woman was always there, right in the
centre of the long tracking shot, taking one step and the next,
towards an ending that he knew, and I knew, but she did not.
In the morning I could not think of any moral point but this: I
would accept beaten gold if it was offered; even silver, at a
pinch. I would accept blue, purple and crimson yarns, fine
linen and spices, incense and lapis lazuli, without a second
thought. Last night I was offered this dream. I suppose I must
accept it too.
Does every woman have this dream?
