Dreams we have as children - guest post

An alarm goes off; a hand reaches out from under the covers, picks up the phone and fumbles with the buttons. Some days the hand, correctly, selects snooze. Other days, it cancels the alarm. But that’s why there are two alarms. It drops the phone on the pillow, grabs the covers and pulls them up tight. One final, futile attempt to take refuge in a dream world which is departing, rapidly, as the morning sun sneaks in under the curtains.

The cat just watches from his vantage point on the bed. He is also in no hurry to get up. The bed is soft and warm, and he still has a full belly from the night before. Plus, he has seen this happen every morning for the past few years. He is used to it.

The alarm goes off again. The hand fumbles, fails to find the phone which has slipped between the pillow and the covers. The alarm gets louder. Grumbling and mumbling the figure rises from the bed. To those who doubt evolution; this strange, hairy beast, grunting and gesturing like some sort of Neanderthal, manages to leave no doubt that we are in fact related to primates. Some of us more than others, it seems. Covers are thrown open; the cat stands up with a mixture of grace and indignation, pausing to stretch - doubling his size before yawning with his maw wide.

The phone is found. The alarm is shut off. The figure grunts, scratches; leaves the bedroom. It’s a hideous sight to behold. The cat watches. The bed is left a mess.
Over the next minutes, a kettle is boiled; coffee or tea is brewed and drunk. The figure evolves from a naked, hairy beast to an almost civil human being. The cat is fed and sits in front of his plate dragging most of his food onto the floor. Inexplicitly, cat food must taste so much better from the ground.
The figure leaves for the day, the cat relaxes; he has the house to himself.

-x-
Turn back the clock.

There is no alarm. There is barely light creeping in under the curtains. If you listen very, very carefully you might be able to make out the sound of birds chirping to themselves in the trees; a tentative start to the dawn chorus. A light is flicked on, curtains are thrown open. A radio shaped like oversized headphones is turned on and a young boy is bounding around the room full of energy; the sort of energy most adults can only obtain by dangerous amounts of caffeine or the abuse of non-prescription medication. He dreams of being an astronaut, an artist, a rock star, a policeman, a fireman, a cowboy. Each day it’s different. He’ll stand in front of the radio with his red, plastic guitar (the one with the yellow wobble bar) and strum along to the latest single by Pink Floyd, or the Who, or Queen. He’ll get on his little white police motorbike (the plastic one, with the little red walkie-talkie) and re-enact the last episode of C.H.I.P.S. or he’d run around with his imitation colt 45 and pretend to shoot red Indians (who were different to that nice Indian couple that lived next door and came around every so often, sharing their strangely spicy, but really rather nice, food with him and his parents) that everyone knows are the baddies of the wild west. He really wants to go into space and looks forward to the day England buy one of those new space shuttle things.
He thinks girls are yucky and never wants to be married; the ones on his street are forever playing with their dolls and pushchairs. He’d rather race up and down the road on his bike, and really wants to be able to do all those tricks the BMX riders on the telly can; last time he tried though, he ended up in a neighbour’s hedge and almost bent his front wheel.

He likes camping out in the back garden; even if the ants find him and sneak into his cheese salad sandwich. He loves being outside and to the consternation of his parents, likes to tear up and down the garden in the midday sun. “You’ll get all hot doing that!” his mother cries to him, but he doesn’t care; he is having fun.
Every day is an adventure. Every day is filled with imagination and fantasy.

-x-
There is a point, somewhere on the roadmap of life, where childhood whimsy is abandoned as we face up to the harsh realities of life. England will never have a Space Shuttle. C.H.I.P.S. was oddly camp and not at all reflective of the highway patrol, either here or in California, then or now. Girls actually aren’t that bad, well most of the time; and even if he goes on x-factor or any of those “lack of talent” shows, he has to accept the fact that he’ll never be a rock star. Of course, he can accept that, but he likes to forget he accepted it from time to time.

-x-
It has been too long since I wrote, since I blogged. When the offer was made to me by Gemmak to be a guest blogger, I won’t say I jumped at the chance but I found myself rubbing my head and thinking “where am I?” and “how did I get here?” which led, naturally perhaps, into the dreams I had as a child. Inside, although I’ve grown and changed, I’m fundamentally the same person I’ve always been. Yes, the packaging may be a bit dented and tatty in places, but I’ve not really lost any of my awe and wonder of the world. Yes, I have had to grow up and accept the fact that reality, more often than not, sucks. But I feel like I’ve retained some of the naivety and innocence I had as a child. Maybe that’s the sign of a creative mind? (I’m told people like John Lasseter retain a child-like quality, enthusiasm, energy about them; so if that’s true then I’m in good company)
The dreams we had as children, they’re not always feasible or realistic. But they were fun, weren’t they? We should never lose sight of them, and revisit our innocence from time to time. I think it’s what keeps us young.

Thank you,

NON53N53 April 2009