↑ Vantage pt for Jay Levine at tippity top of crow's nest before he jumped.
Das Boot: the first and perhaps most profound of the Dreamscape categories in that it describes not only the day-to-day adventures of a Caribbean escape, but also a moment that was much of a fulcrum or a rubicon for everyone involved, both a gathering and a dispersal. They were all twenty-four or twenty-five years old, an age where everything in the past seems like prologue and the next turned page is where the story really begins. There was a lot of debate about what comes next: plans hatched, destinies reconsidered. And soon after: Sebastian heading for Brazil, Christoph to Argentina, Helene to New Zealand, our pal Jayson and Natalie both to New York City. And the more we studied these pages, the stronger the urge became to apply allegory and deeper significance to everything that was written. And although 'reality' strongly resists such neat and tidy structuring, nonetheless here it is.
-- Eds
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Das Boot (18/33)
December 18, 1990
Choose a different dreamscape
Still no one but myself on board. Oblique patches of sunlight slide through all hatches, swaying and swinging against the varnished woodwork + eastern-looking upholstery with the subtle swaying + swinging of the ship in the swells.
And this allows me, briefly, to touch upon the nature of my dreams for the past few nights. Always work related. Always a waiter nightmare and, more specifically, always late for work. Often my last day before heading to this tropical vacation where, ironically, I dream.
Last night, I’m late for work. Standing in the kitchen in Connecticut and some girl (two girls, actually, but only one is germaine) is going to tell me something, but then dad appears and she decides better of it. “What?” I ask. “What were you going to say?” But without much conviction on my part because I have read the clues and I know somehow that she is going to tell me what it occurs to me just then that I have suspected for quite some time: my father is not really my father. The thought doesn’t surprise me terribly. I am filled for just a flash with a semi-relief and w/a sense of freedom and w/a twinge of curiosity as to the nature of my real dad who I will no doubt resemble in certain ways. Dad says, to the girl: “Yeah, what?” Doesn’t he know what she is going to say? The girl perhaps shrugs slightly, smiles the smile of a pertinent secret, leans close to me, leaning against the sink (me closer to the window which views the driveway) and says (whispers): “You’ve got to hide in another hide.”
Ambiguous. Does it mean what I suspected? Did my dad hear her? All I know is that I’m late for work. Who will bring me? Work has shifted it’s locale, mysteriously, to the river where I swam as a kid. So, not far, but the clock reads 9:30 and that’s when, I know, I am expected to be there.
More about sunfish sailing up our driveway, perhaps to work, although I’ve forgotten how to sail a sunfish so progress is slow. Sliding a can of Slice back and forth with ___ (head sailing instructor at IA) which then progresses to a fencing match in which he quickly demonstrates his superiority by jabbing me decisively in the solar plexus and rending me windless.
More obscure images + visions and flashes. Someone else who is late for work. We both express our hope that someone has done our prep for us.