I was living with many other people in a big health resort in which we'd all taken shelter after a zombie plague had swept the world. Evidently, the plague had been going on for ages, as we were all quite used to the situation. There was a lively party going on in the main hall and everyone was having a good time -- except me. I couldn't understand why everyone seemed to have forgotten the zombies. I was wearily aware that it was inevitable that the zombies would eventually find some sort of weak point or other and break through the barricades and kill everyone. In fact, there were already zombies in some (safely sealed-off) parts of the complex. For example, through the windows at the back of the room in which the party was taking place, you could look down on an indoor swimming pool that was full of zombies flailing about madly in the water and stumbling in and out of the changing rooms.
As I watched them, gloomily reflecting that I could not imagine a likely scenario that didn't involve us all ending up like that or, on the other hand, torn to bits and eaten, I overheard people around me cheerfully discussing their plans to clear the zombies out of that part of the complex so we could all go swimming again. I thought that this was incredibly stupid and dangerous but I could tell there was no point in trying to talk to them about it as they were already convinced that it was a brilliant idea. I went to my room and looked through boxes of old books that I'd managed to salvage from the outside world before I arrived in the complex. There were some great books there, which cheered me up a lot.
Later, I returned to the main hall and discovered that not only had the pool already been cleared but that the people who had been at the party were already using it. How revolting! They couldn't have been able to clean it properly in the time I was away!
Notes for Freudian Interpretation
Many elements of this dream will be familiar to regular readers. The story and the setting of these zombie plague dreams vary greatly, but they all involve me mooching around a building that is threatened by hordes of zombies, pessimistically thinking about the inevitability of the collapse of our precarious lifestyle and the resulting horrible end to our lives.
I might not have thought about zombies or seen any zombie-related material for weeks before I have one of these dreams. However, I know that, at some point during the day, it will have occurred to me that our wonderful western world, which is civilised and decent and does a great job of keeping me safe from disaster, is actually a terrifyingly rickety structure made up of a mass of conflicting rubbish held together only by a preposterously unsustainable process involving the ever-increasing production and consumption of useless, wasteful nonsense and that the unavoidable fact is that, sooner or later, it's all bound to topple over and pitch us all into something that might as well be hell. How do I know that it will have occurred to me? Because it occurs to me at some point every day. Because, yes, I am just that deep.
The day I had this particular zombie plague dream, the above thought occurred to me as I made my way with some difficulty through a crowded bar. Why was the monotonously thudding music so unbelievably loud? Why was the room so dark? It was like one of those sensory-deprivation chambers that the CIA use to break the will of detainees in Guantanamo Bay! Why didn't everyone in the place march up to the bar and demand that the music be turned down so that they could have a conversation with their friends that consisted of more than simple, factual sentences screamed in each other's ears? Obviously, it was because they liked it that way. Why? Obviously, again, it was because, like me, they all have that same panicky awareness of the instability and fragility of everything that our happy culture depends on and were using the thumping, pounding, relentless music to try to drown it out and forget that they know how close everything is to falling apart. They were terrified and too terrified to show it!
That's what occurred to me, anyway. I'm not saying I stand by the insight; I'm just saying that's the thought that bubbled up at that particular moment.
I would like to know why people don't seem to mind sitting in bars where they can't speak to anyone, though.
Stuart has never played a ukulele in his life. His novelty instrument of choice is the mandolin, but, in any case, I haven't talked to him about playing music for a while. He sits opposite me in the office and the day I had the dream, I stretched out my legs while reading my book and accidentally kicked him under the desk, for which I apologised immediately. 