Enter a old, dilapidated, second hand bookstore. Young kids swarm the place. I find myself pushed to the only empty corner - the ‘ancient manuscripts’ section. The owner, behind his desk, peers out at me nodding and head gesturing in some sort of silent language.
A telephone rings beside me. Hadn’t noticed the booth with it’s almost obsolete dial phone. Reaching for the receiver it stops ringing. I’m here to purchase a book for “Jimmy”, a young, eccentric collector too sick to leave his apartment and whom I’ve never met. He leaves notes and cash in my mailbox. Since I read the books before passing them on it’s a nice co-dependant relationship.
The young kid behind me is astounded that the tome I’m buying costs only $22.00. He claims he didn’t even think books in the ‘old book’ section were for sale. He thought they were reference books. As I’m talking to the kid I slip the book seller three special coins. He winks saying, “Jimmy will return this soon enough.”
The book is handed back to me wrapped in a silk shawl. A beautiful, priceless fabric. I know I am in the possession of something incredibly rare. I calmly leave the premises, arrive at my apartment and run up the flights of broad marble stairs to the atelier which has two massive doors with no handles - just push to enter.
The left door has a Thanka scroll pinned to it and I knock on the right. Loud music and chanting can be heard from behind the doors. My knocking thunders echoing in the hallway. No answer. I knock again this time lightly not wishing to disturb.
Suddenly, as if all the above were a daydream, I find myself cramped into a small auditorium waiting for a lecture by a renowned scholar of eastern religious studies. His wife, a well known musician, is introducing her husband who will speak on . . . her voice trails off. I remember the book. It had a page missing. On the table to the right of the speakers podium is a white flower in a glass, waterless vase. The flower droops. A foreboding tremble chills me. I fear the scholar will soon die. He has four objects to pass on.
I awake.
:: comment :: . . . planning to devote July to recording dreams . . . night dreams from the past to the present . . . why July . . .
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