Dream 27
This was a long convoluted dream where past and present were merged together.
I had gone back to my past but the dream was in the present.
It is a real good dream in dream word's sense.
I had returned home from abroad during the early days of open economy booming in Sri-Lanka.
The days of J.R.J when we had everything in plenty including free time off work.
Added to the excitement I was alone and not married.
I had come on a long holiday to enjoy the sunshine and this was a long tour outside Colombo.
Unfortunately true to its form I can remember only the latter part.
I had thoroughly enjoyed the holiday alone and I was alighting from (probably) a tour bus and I got out first.
As I was coming down the steps to enjoy the last destination of our sponsored tour.
Strangely, three local ladies of middle age (suffice to say they were older than me) who were dressed up like the westerners, joined me in conversation.
Mind you I was the youngest of the tour party and all the others were middle age and above and many were foreign guys and girls.
All these time I was a free bird and thoroughly engrossed in my own dream tour, did not bother to make any acquaintanceship with anybody except the tour driver.
I told them the present youth do not know how to enjoy life.
They are either jobless or doing studies to old age to get a good job.
That led them not to enjoy the youth.
Then I remember saying I need to buy some vegetable to take home to prepare something for dinner.
They said there is a lovely garden down the steps and there is a section with fresh vegetables for pick and pluck as you wish.
I thought, this was like visiting a farm in summer in England.
I was surprised that, I was away only a short time and the open economy had done wonders in Sri-Lanka.
As I was about to enter the garden they told me this is Sri-Lanka and when you enter the garden, you must give religious respect to the garden and remove the shoes.
I was wearing very expensive shoes and was reluctant to remove them, knowing very well when I return, they will be missing in spite of the free and open economy.
I was given almost a military (just like when you enter Dalada Maligawa, The Temple of the Tooth, in Kandy) like march order to remove them.
They took some money from me and gave me a ticket too.
I asked them where can I do some shopping for which they said when you come up the steps and proceed towards the town, there is a big shopping mall round the corner and one has to go down the steps to the underground level and there are lot of bargains.
I must tell you, I took off my suit and put it in a carrier bag made for the suit in leather and I did not part with it when I dished out my shoes for a paid ticket.
Mind you they did not charge me to enter the garden unlike in UK.
As I entered, I felt like as I was entering the Kew Garden in London.
One has to walk in a maze like contour made for walking.
Except the pathway on which we walked, all round was greenery.
Naturally, I slowed down and was watching and touching every plant with affection.
They were made like platforms and I saw exotic plants I had never seen in my life.
Strangely enough every plant was sealed to a chain like structure that wrap round thier bellies.
As if the anybody try to remove them an electric shock like feature and an alarm were activated by default.
These ladies did not slow down and they thought I was a ladies man and that I will follow them soon enough.
Instead I took the opportunity to avoid them whole heartedly and proceeded to the vegetable garden.
I picked some and I cannot remember what I picked since the exotic plants took my imagination away from my supper and the vegetables.
They were just ordinary to me but the plants were exotic.
Then to cut the story short, I eventually climbed up from another flight of steps and when I finally emerged at last, I saw the ladies in another flight of steps far away from me.
I asked them how to find my shoes.
They said go round and down again which I did religiously so far impressed by the shear beauty of the place.
Then when I finally found the place, which looked dirty but instead leading to a public toilet.
They gatekeeper asked me to leave my hand luggage and took my ticket for the shoes and did not give me a receipt for my hand luggage which contained my priced suit.
I felt very strange and fishy by the time I reached the bottom.
The place was worse than a London Underground toilet and I could not find my shoes.
I was ripped off my shoes and my suit in less than an hour of the final phase of the guided tour.
With the nasty stench I woke up.
I knew I was ripped off and hoodwinked even without any interpretation from heaven.
That is the long and short of the dream.
I thought this was a nice one for Maha Brahma.
Also I now filter all my dreams and select all the good ones and the others are kept in a back burner, in case I have some lone period of insomnia with the heat we are enjoying now in Kandy without rain.
My plants are wilting and drying by the day.
Maha Brahma was prompt.
Before he could open his voice (mail to be precise), I told him I am sorry, I interrupted my dream on my own volition.
Just as good, he said, I was about to wake you up anyway.
Why?
If you decided to go to the shopping mall to get replacements for your shoes and the suit, you were in for a shock.
Is it that bad.
Let me tell you the rest.
If you proceeded and went up to the shopping mall, there is a long electric escalator to take you down.
Normally it is stationary.
The moment you step in it starts going down slowly and right at the center it stops abruptly.
The choice for you is to either climb down or climb up.
Which one you chose he asked me?
I said climb up.
Why?
It saves me energy and climbing down takes more energy physiologically.
Is that so.
YES.
I did not know that fact.
In heaven there is no gravity you know.
Besides, I do not know whether going down will lead me to hell or how steep it was.
I only knew how much, I went down and that distance realistically I was able to climb up for sure anyway.
GOOD BOY, he said.
You are brighter than, the credit I have given you till now.
Not at all I said.
I have experienced these godforsaken things before I went to UK and we could not go to Oval to watch a cricket match alone and one's watch get ripped off and if one goes to Mattakkulia before Mr.Premadasa's time, your gold chain would disappear with a knife point ( no T 56 those days and we knew how to run).
So you did not watch cricket, then?
No we went there in a gang and nobody would try one's luck with us with our macho image.
If you went down you would have been dead meat.
Why?
Those ladies will eat you alive.
They are carnivorous.
They take your wallet and what ever left of you and if you had not had a heart attack by the end of your journey down, they will kill you or eat you alive.
Are they devils?
No, they every inch a human but they are cannibalistic.
Is this the future?
Is it a foreign country like Papua New Guinea.
NO.
They are all Sri-Lankans.
Do not con?
We were promised miracles by our politicians after we won the war.
This is worse then the war know.
Calm down my son.
This is the future.
You would be long gone by then.
What then is the interpretation SIR?
Did you see any greenery in your dream.
YES, in the the garden.
Did you see anywhere else?
Absolutely not.
The garden you visited was the only place where there were any plants.
It is like the greenhouses that are in London.
You know how they are kept.
They heat it during winter to get the tropical climate.
What is the different, in future.
Global warming will reach its peak.
All plants will die unless they are kept under a canopy like structure with entry of controlled sunlight.
The garden you saw was cooled to an ideal temperature for some selected plants to be grown.
Nobody is allowed to venture into it except the scientists.
You had a glimpse of the future.
Human had no alternative but to become cannibals.
What about carnivores?
All the animal have disappeared from the planet earth, by then except a few like cockroaches and geckos.
Can you give me the time scale of this happenings?
NO.
Why?
Politicians especially the Americans may not like it to be declared now.
They want it to kept as a top secret.
Why?
They are already stockpiling the plants that survive the scenario described.
See you soon with another dream and he disappeared.
