Dream of a Grecian DemonI arrive in Greece for a much-needed vacation and go straight to an art gallery that I’ve visited in a previous dream. The gallery is part of a maze of stalls (souks) and appears to be closing. The workers don’t greet me as well as I expected, but I shop anyway. I find a large-format ‘zine about a recent Sub-Genius zombie peace action in San Francisco. The ‘zine even has a fold-out poster drawn by Paul Mavrides.
I go up to the counter to buy the magazine, but they’ve closed. The workers pass me, headed to the back of the gallery. I just noticed a baked apple dessert on a table back there so wonder if that’s what they’re interested in.
Two attractive women arrive, eagerly greeting me like we already know each other. We leave the gallery and walk through the other stalls until we become separated. I exit the bazaar and see a bluegrass band finishing a set under a dessert tent. The field they’re in is muddy, but the fans applaud the band as they begin to mingle. I notice a man as he stands up. His new hippie/Indian pants have a muddy ass.
The women find me again and be go back into the stalls to meet a man I know. One of the women starts skipping and cart-wheeling through an installation. I begin to clown and act goofy until the three of us end up cuddled into a small room. One of the women reaches up and touches an art-covered wall. It’s covered in stencil cut-outs! I get my camera out to shoot the art and then realize that I’ve only been walking around with my carry-on bag. Hopefully, I left my main bag at the first gallery I visited.
We start getting turned on in the small installation. A woman I met earlier interrupts us and scolds me. “I’m surprised that you wiped Dan Cantrell off the desk like everybody else did!”
“Do you want to take this outside?” I asked, thinking an entirely different thought when I said that.
“I do want to speak with you outside.”
“Huh?”
“You just asked me if I wanted …”
“…oh, I wasn’t thinking that.”
I leave the two women and leave the stalls with the third. She tells me to be careful who I spend time with and that I is hard to trust people in this city. I assume she’s jealous but agree anyway to change the subject.
The woman takes my carry-on bag, causing it to make funny sound effect noises from the toys inside. We walk on and finally meet the man that I was looking for.
“There’s a party we’re going to. Invitation only,” he says.
Two new woman, dark skinned with silver wigs, take my noisy bag. We climb on a flatbed truck and drive off. The man talks the whole drive.
“Take a bottle of liquor into the bathroom with you,” he suggests.
“So I can sterilize the seat?”
“No, you need to pour it around the toilet – trust me.”
Out in the suburbs now, we pass several big parties. Cops roll by, and seem to be protecting the parties instead of busting them. We arrive to our party and the women hop out and run ahead. We walk into a modern loft that appears to be empty. I look down into a large room and see people standing around a rectangular pool.
I go down the stairs and realize that a man sits in a big chair that hovers above the pool. He finishes what he’s saying and looks left towards me.
“Hi Russell. It’s finally good to meet you.”
As his chair lowers and turns, I realize that he’s a demon.
“Why haven’t you come to visit sooner?”
“I was busy and lost my luggage.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
He looks at me and speaks in a distant, guttural voice: “You should be creating amazing art and writing science fiction by now! What’s your problem?”
Dazed from the strange voice, I answer “Everything has a duality to it. I’ve spent a lot of time considering the sides of things so can’t focus on my art.”
The demon comes closer to me and, speaking distant and guttural asks, “why hasn’t he slept with Nigel and Vince yet? I smell sex on him. Who HAS slept with him? Look at those marks on his neck!”
I imagine Laura and the feathers and rose petals that I’d just thrown on her doorstep. I feel the white energy that that action created and the kindness of it feels good. While remembering this, the demon has hovered out of my peripheral vision.
He returns with a poncho-like throw and wants to put it on me. He gets close to me, holding the throw, and I look at his face: intense eyes, flaking and scarred skin, blonde combed-back hair, not smiling.
I wake up.