Perchance to Dream

Extracts from the Personal Diary of Dr Belinda Durham

October 2006:

After the events at Silbury Hill and learning about MI13, it was almost a relief when the academic year re-started in October. My request for a sabbatical was turned down yet again. Of course I could not explain what I was actually spending a lot of my time on, but the fact that I was now undertaking ‘part-time consultancy to a government department’ had helped my case. My Head of Department told me privately that I might well get a sabbatical next year.

Between running the ‘Romano-British Life and Culture’ and the ‘Finds: Practical Conservation and Cataloguing’ courses, I spent time at MI13 HQ training in fitness and reading in their library. Although there were fascinating books there, I simply could not make the rituals mean anything other than an academic description. Despite all I had seen, I still could not get over the ingrained hurdle that magic was simply folk-beliefs from an earlier society that we now know derived from a mixture of lack of scientific understanding and baseless superstition.

The only specific work I did for MI13 was to visit one of their staff one morning, along with Eliza Jamieson. Jimmy Wainwright was one of MI13’s few (6?) full-time staff and he had gone missing for a third time. All I remembered about him was that he had given us some information about the shoggoth over the phone, but I had not met him before. There was no answer when we tried to phone him, so we went round to his address.

He lived in an old-fashioned way in lodgings, with a landlady providing meals. She let us in and took us to Jimmy’s room. I had the impression that she was concerned about him because he had recently opted out of her meals, hardly left his room and made a lot of noise at night. He opened the door and I was rather shocked to see a tall but very emaciated man with a very pale complexion. His rooms were messy but not worse that some student residences I’ve seen after a party. There was certainly no sign of illness or abandoned meals. I think he said something about flu, but then went on about the Mi-Go and how seductive they were. They would tell you that they could take your brain anywhere in the galaxy, he said, and then pop it back. He became more coherent as the visit went on, and I wondered if he is an alcoholic since he took scotch in his coffee. As we left, he said he’d send us some information.

December 16^th:

I forgot all about this, until 16^th December when I received a parcel out of the blue from him. The box contained a note and 6 sprigs of leaves that looked rather like cannabis but were not quite the correct colour or aroma. The note said to chew the leaves while chanting a particular phrase, and to do this in company.

Not wanting to experiment with unknown drugs alone, I phoned Eliza, who had received exactly the same thing. We agreed that we ought to contact St John, who we felt sure was an expert in this area. Then it was obvious that we should also get in touch with Adam and Barbara (who still knew nothing about MI13).

We gathered in Eliza’s flat in Reading and all but Barbara began to chew the herb and chant. We’d agreed that she should keep an eye on us and the surroundings – and call an ambulance if anything that the NHS could deal with happened.

After chanting for a short time, I realised that I could see everyone else even though I felt sure that my eyes were shut. Then everything swirled around and I began to drift down into a glowing space, only to settle on a cold and hard surface.

I woke up, and found I was lying on the floor of a black room along with the three others, arranged in a cross formation. I felt certain it must be a dream because we were all not only totally naked but surprisingly good-looking!

The room itself was like something from a traditional horror film – a black altar, niches containing green flames and archways leading to another room; everything made from black basalt.

To add to the bizarreness of the situation, there was a note on the altar from Jimmy! He said we were in the city of Dylath-Leen. We should not talk with the merchants from the Green Galleons but that we should leave by the north gate and follow the river Skai. Once outside the walls we would be in the Open Lands and we should ask at the first dwelling not made of black basalt.

We found robes, rather like monks’ robes, hanging up beyond one of the arches, and each put one on. We went further and reached a door to the outside of the building, into a street labelled the Street of Tears. Again, like a dream, people were rushing busily around the street with blank expressions on their faces, paying no attention to us.

We walked uphill initially but then Adam asked a man wearing a turban for directions to the northward gate and we were told to go downhill. However, Adam got the idea that the man was playing a nasty practical joke on us, so we continued up the hill and looked for others to ask. We learnt later that this man was exactly one of the merchants from the Green Galleons that we’d been advised to avoid.

Eliza realised that some of the ‘people’ were not even remotely human just before we saw a man running towards us pursued by two of these non-humans who looked particularly threatening. We also ran, trying to find somewhere to hide. I managed to slip into a side turning and they thundered past. Then I had to run again to see where all my friends had gone; I did not want to become separated from them in this city. I caught up with them by a temple after the beasts had abandoned their chase. The temple was another black basalt building, looking like something from a Hammer Horror movie.

We joined up with Alex, who was a visitor like us, presumably lying dreaming somewhere else. He told us that his pursuers were Moon-Beasts. He was Scottish, from somewhere near where Eliza was from, but we did not learn much more about him.

Once outside the city, I realised how oppressive the atmosphere inside it had been. The countryside became like an idyllic, rural England as we walked for hours along the river towards the Temple of the Elder Gods.

We stopped at a farm along the route since we were all getting thirsty. Mindful of so many myths where eating or drinking in the underworld means that you can never leave, I refused to let a single drop of liquid or morsel of food pass my lips, regardless of how thirsty I felt.

Finally, very much later, we arrived at the Temple and were recognised by an old man (called Atal?) as friends of James. He brought us fruit and drink and I finally gave in and drank and ate. After all, Jimmie Wainwright had engineered this whole trip for us, and I now could not see why he should mean us harm in a subtle way when there were several alternatives (like the Moon-Beasts) that had not set upon us.

Finally, Jimmie appeared looking fit, healthy and tanned, wearing rich clothes. He told us he would soon take up residence in the city of Celaphais and told us more about this dream land. Dylath-Leen was a port and, despite its forbidding nature, the only place to depart for some of the other places in this realm. It was also a source of information.

We sat with Jimmie at a party, eating, drinking and talking. As I chatted to someone next to me, I felt a touch on my shoulder and heard a familiar voice saying, ‘Belinda, wake up!’ Turning to see who it was, I realised that I had awoken in Eliza’s flat, as Barbara had roused us as we’d agreed. Only half an hour had passed.

As we talked, I realised that I and St John remembered the dream visit much better than the others. Later, we heard that Jimmie had been found dead in his rooms of an antidepressant overdose. I wondered if he was really now alive and thriving in that dream land, or simply wherever we all go after death.

January 5^th 2007:

To my surprise, Eliza and I received invitations to his funeral, with encouragement to take anyone we saw fit with us. All five of us went. It was a strange event as a celebration of his life. Playing ‘Jimmie the Dreamer’ by Supertramp as his coffin was brought in was typical.

There were two distinct groups of mourners: there were his family and some ex-colleagues from earlier years, subdued and disturbed at his apparent suicide after a decline in his mental state. They wanted to talk about the fact that he worked for the government, although they had no idea of his job, and of his earlier life as a scholar and ethnographer of Native Americans.

The other, smaller, group were people who looked like New-Agers. They chatted amongst themselves and seemed to be suppressing their happiness out of consideration for his family. Without needing discussion, St John went to talk with them. They had genuinely liked Jimmie and were not sad at all. Indeed, at least one made a veiled reference to visiting Jimmie in the dream land.