Dream
I dreamed I found a beautiful abandoned house on the edge of the CBD.
It was Georgian in style, and three storeys tall. Painted a creamy fawn colour on the outside, with arched windows. Inside it was full of antique furniture, rich oaks, teak and cedar, leather and velvet. Red velvet curtains shadowed the windows. Fireplaces sat abandoned. It was as if fitted out in the 1870s and left that way ever since. Thick carpets, slightly worn.
It appeared to be on Spencer St, facing North and West Melbourne, and walking distance to the centre of the city. And yet the centre of the city was not crowded and busy like the north end of Melbourne, but airy and open like an Athenian forum. Wedged in amongst occupied buildings and on a main street, yet it remained untouched.
I surveyed it as a possible squat. It seemed structurally sound. To the rear, behind the typical Victorian lean-to kitchen, was a long, narrow strip of tumble-down wooden fence, heading away, with a couple of feet of tangled garden alongside it. Running through what was clearly once the house's yard was a footpath, along this fence, from the road to a small, local train station. The garden widened out before the station, and hidden amongst the undergrowth was a bowling green (vegetable garden!) and a swimming pool (swimming pool!) as well as an also-abandoned red brick toilet block/change room. It was unclear whether these were still attached to the house's land and title or belonged to the council or the railways. A trip to the town hall should clarify this.
I was thrilled. It seemed perfect for a squat.
The narrative shifted. Same building, perhaps another era. We had rented a floor or a suite for meetings. Furniture the same, curtains the same. On the third floor, my assistant warned me that our enemies had rented a room on another street, a level above us, with a line of sight to this window. Perhaps for surveillance, perhaps for a sniper shot. A trap! We drew our pistols and cautiously approached the window, sidelong, to peer out at the other building, blocks away. How had they known?
Elements of an earlier recurring dream then: the three storeys on Swanston St, which we rented and occupied, and the mysterious fourth and topmost floor, fitted out as a functioning nightclub, which we were permitted to visit, when it was not in use, and turn on the rotating, pulsating lights; but as much as we pleaded, not permitted to rent permanently and use.
It was Georgian in style, and three storeys tall. Painted a creamy fawn colour on the outside, with arched windows. Inside it was full of antique furniture, rich oaks, teak and cedar, leather and velvet. Red velvet curtains shadowed the windows. Fireplaces sat abandoned. It was as if fitted out in the 1870s and left that way ever since. Thick carpets, slightly worn.
It appeared to be on Spencer St, facing North and West Melbourne, and walking distance to the centre of the city. And yet the centre of the city was not crowded and busy like the north end of Melbourne, but airy and open like an Athenian forum. Wedged in amongst occupied buildings and on a main street, yet it remained untouched.
I surveyed it as a possible squat. It seemed structurally sound. To the rear, behind the typical Victorian lean-to kitchen, was a long, narrow strip of tumble-down wooden fence, heading away, with a couple of feet of tangled garden alongside it. Running through what was clearly once the house's yard was a footpath, along this fence, from the road to a small, local train station. The garden widened out before the station, and hidden amongst the undergrowth was a bowling green (vegetable garden!) and a swimming pool (swimming pool!) as well as an also-abandoned red brick toilet block/change room. It was unclear whether these were still attached to the house's land and title or belonged to the council or the railways. A trip to the town hall should clarify this.
I was thrilled. It seemed perfect for a squat.
The narrative shifted. Same building, perhaps another era. We had rented a floor or a suite for meetings. Furniture the same, curtains the same. On the third floor, my assistant warned me that our enemies had rented a room on another street, a level above us, with a line of sight to this window. Perhaps for surveillance, perhaps for a sniper shot. A trap! We drew our pistols and cautiously approached the window, sidelong, to peer out at the other building, blocks away. How had they known?
Elements of an earlier recurring dream then: the three storeys on Swanston St, which we rented and occupied, and the mysterious fourth and topmost floor, fitted out as a functioning nightclub, which we were permitted to visit, when it was not in use, and turn on the rotating, pulsating lights; but as much as we pleaded, not permitted to rent permanently and use.