Train to China

1. Hostel

I wake up in the morning in a hostel in Paris or some other city in France. High up. I am the first to wake, or maybe the others are gone already, to work or whatever they do. This is like house sharing. I've been staying here for a few days already. So I know the discipline. There is a small kitchen that is never cleaned up. There are many rooms and hallways, ups and downs, very chaotic structure, old building.

I have to go to the bathroom, so naturally I know where that is. I go from my room to the end of the hallway. A small step up, all wooden interior. Not well maintained. Very small chamber for the toilet. This is the toilet I usually use, but when I look I see someone forgot to flush and there's still toilet paper floating. Actually so much that it doesn't float anymore. And other stuff is in it, though not human excrement. More like toys. I don't want to go here. I know there are other toilets. The house is full of them, on different corners, hidden, and on different floors. I don't feel really at ease in this house. I share it with seven other people, boys and girls, all my age or a little bit younger.

The other toilets are not too my liking either, so I decide not to go, although it is rather urgent. I have to pee.

I go to the kitchen, there is no one there. Then I go back to my room. It is the last door or room, I remember two doors next two each other in the corridor that I pass. There is a frame there that belongs to a loom. There's white and red tapestry hanging about that someone is working on.

Later I meet my own friends, maybe my brother N and maybe Bale, and tell them about the toilets. And they ask how many people live there and I say seven.

2. Boat

We're on a boat, it is a big ship, like a cruise ship. We're in the open sea, or maybe the Channel. North Sea. Inside. Maybe evening or night. I'm with my brother N, I think. We have to go somewhere specific and no one can see us. Secret. We are not supposed to be on the ship in the first place.

First we are in the public area, and then we move towards either the toilets or the elevators where we will not be disturbed. We enter a room. All is green and grey, a little dark. I suppose we are looking for the bathrooms. No one is there, my brother knows a secret passageway we can sneak through.

In the meantime innocent people, a middle age age, see us because they want to use the bathroom of course. We are not taken aback and just continue what we were doing. So my brother opens this door on the side that wasn't there before. And we sneak in and enter the restricted areas. The person sees it and other people see it, that is not what was supposed to happen. They should not know about this part of the ship, or either they want to make use of it themselves, that is not what it is for.

But it is too late now.

We go in anyway, and up somewhere. We still have to move secretly. I realize that the ship has two very distinct sides and that it can switch between them. Maybe they are parallel worlds. 

It is a type of dream that I have had before: Sneaking in the Unauthorized Parts of a Ship.

Because I start to wake, other more superficial thoughts enter my mind and reason about the ship's structure, and I see the sea where we are, but it is not really part of the dream.

3. Train or Plane

I'm in a garage (possibly there is a piece of dream before this). Big one. They only work in the back part of the garage. There are many people here, both customers and employees. Though not many customers, just me and my brother N, and there is this girl who is having her car fixed.

Cars that are being worked on are arranged in this particular area. We stand at the side and watch. The girl is actively participating, or talking to the mechanics.

This part of the building, the whole thing looks like a hangar, can be shut off with shutters. They suddenly slam down. They're made from metal, come down quite hard, make a lot of noise, but you can still see through them, there are two big windows. However, I don't think you can walk through them. So they may or may not be open, I'm not sure anymore.

It's not good that this happens without a cause. One of the mechanics undoes it. But a little later it happens again. At that time, my brother and I know that it is time to leave or either we will not be able to leave anymore. If this thing gets shut and stuck, then we are caged. At the same time, it is dangerous to take the leap, because if the shutters come down while you are standing there, it will kill you. It will definitely smash you.

There was possibly a reason why we didn't leave earlier, but now we do.

The next scene is (or at least I so remember) at the airport. We are already late for our plane. We are to leave to China. And now we are about to miss our flight. We run and we hurry.

There's a large space which is still inside, but also open at the end, behind it are solid walls and buildings, this area is normally restricted or you are guided through it when you have to enter the plane. There is one person that works here overseeing all. Where we come from was nothing, but the side we are going to has these escalators upward. However, they end nowhere. There is nothing on the other side. They stick up, 45°, but only serve as a basis. Moreover, they are shut closed, no one is allowed to enter anymore.

Maybe before we met other people, friends, who we were telling that we are going to China, or else they said other things that were relevant for the trip.

My brother sprints, that is to say, he runs harder than me and makes an effort to still get aboard. He comes to the slanting upward escalators, there are four of them. And they are being closed off when he gets there, but he can still get past in the middle of the first escalator, which means that he enters it where it is already up in the air, halfway up. I don't know how he did that. I could do the same if I ran, but I don't feel like and when I get there I decide to go around to where the normal entrance is, level ground. Otherwise I would have to make this extra effort, I really don't feel like.

When I get there, I see that the last escalator has collapsed. By the way, all of them have a pink colour that reminds me of shrimp paste.

But by now it is already closed off and the person standing there, he has a hat, and maybe a broom, he's a cleaner, says that I can't enter anymore. That's a pity, I think, I would still go on, but my brother comes down and tells me we have to go around and we might still be able to catch the train. So I don't go up and we leave the place.

We are also not allowed on the train, because it is already moving. We run a long way in the tunnel in which the train is passing, or a parallel tunnel, until at some point we, or at least my brother, catch up. If we are lucky we could still enter the train midway, that is to say, in the tunnel where there is no platform, and possibly with the train moving still, but they can open one door in such cases. We are in the right tunnel. The train is in the left tunnel, so we can't see it. It is higher though, we know that.

At some point, both tunnels come together and my brother runs back in the left tunnel and stops the train, or better, asks the authorities if we can still enter. They give him a hard time, saying that we can't, because we are late, and the train is already set in motion. There's people on the train, they will be disturbed if we enter the train in the middle of nowhere.

(There was possibly a piece that I forgot that connected the plane station with the train fragment).

So he talks to the officers. I come around.

This is more or less the time when I start to wake up gradually so the dream becomes confused and ends.

+4. Wallet

I remember a passage in the dream, maybe dream 3, where I take out my wallet, possibly to pay for something, and I find that there is too much disorder in my wallet, so I rearrange two of the notes, 50 euro note and a smaller one. Maybe this was in the garage.