The other night my mind went one better and pulled the deja vu trick on me: the one where, in the middle of a dream, you think 'Oh this is my nani-nani dream, I have it all the time' except that you don't; you've never had it before. The dream went with my seemingly rational mind saying 'About that old woman whose throat you cut back when you both were living on ------ St (presents image of house) yes I know you made yourself forget about that but now's the time to own up to it.' I was in a panic. I'd forgotten that incident, buried it completely-- I'd *forgotten* I killed someone, oh my god, what do I do now. I panicked so much I pulled myself half out of sleep, and my real rational mind ticked off all the places I lived in the 70s and reminded me there'd been no old women in any of them. 'No but see I *forgot* the old woman, she might have been there on Madison, that house on Madison in the dream--' Was my cousins' house on the corner crossed with my godmother's flat five doors down. No old women. You didn't kill anyone, quite apart from being the kind of anxious law-abiding soul who worries about dubious deductions on income tax and will I have to pay vast arrears if they disallow my chiropracty?
So I went back to sleep and dreamed, more happily, of making a costume drama with Chen Daoming. But that non-existent old woman I killed still has a ghost trace in my mind. I woder what she's supposed to be.