Friday the 17th of September, 2010, 7:35.
When I went to bed I was transported to Stalingrad. This I could handle. Waking up, however, was scary. I was in a house on Beverley road, one of those posh ones. It was much too big. My ex came in, a guest of a friend of a friend, maybe. She was well impressed. I started playing down the size of the house, saying it’s for the kids in case my fiance and I would one day like a/some child/children. In my dream, I was lying; I was not engaged. She turned white. We continued cordially and I asked about her two kids. It was my turn to be shocked. Two more. That’s when I woke up in a shock. I felt sick so I got up. These, I am sure, are the unresolved demons that drive people to drink. I had a yoghurt instead.
I was shaken but I noticed the sun was rising so I grabbed the camera and went through/over and around the village. The goats were back, attacking rubbish bins like vermin. Workers sat at a cafe, maybe a bus will take them to a factory; shop owners sweep their steps which, in the filth of Taghazout, looks like a gesture more than anything else.
[As you get older] the demons don’t come any less, and I’m not more relaxed, just more tired, that’s all, like an old man whose done with fighting. You don’t get wiser, only less energetic; as our capacity to destroy the world diminishes so does our capacity to destroy ourselves. They call this peace. My only advice to those in their troubled 20s would be, ‘hold on’, it gets better at 30 (mainly).
[In Stalingrad Beevor wrote] ‘Often, their minds went blank because the chilling of their blood slowed down both physical and mental activity.’ (Beevor, p. 338) We don’t get wiser, only slower.
