Read Online The Unlimited Dream Company by J. G. Ballard - Free Book Online
Authors: J. G. Ballard
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glared down at me as if it had been trying to wake me since dawn.
When I sat up Mrs St Cloud was watching me calmly from the window. She stood where I had first seen her after the Cessna’s crash, one arm raised to the brocade curtains, but all her nervousness had gone and she seemed more like the capable older sister of her daughter. Had she kissed me while I slept?
‘Did you sleep, Blake? You’ve brought us some unusual weather. There was an extraordinary storm last night – we’ve all been dreaming of birds.’
‘I woke once …’ Remembering my night-dream and its exhausting climax, I was surprised by how refreshed I felt. ‘I heard nothing.’
‘Good. We wanted you to rest.’ She sat on the bed and touched my shoulder, gazing at me in a maternal way. ‘It was exciting, though, some sort of electrical storm, we could hear thousands of birds rushing through the air. There’s been a fair amount of damage. But I imagine, Blake, that all the strange weather you need is inside your head.’
I noticed that she had let a small but glamorous wave into her hair, as if she were expecting a lover. I was thinking of my dream, the vision of night-flying with its nightmare ending, when I had been suffocated within a vacuum of beating wings and fallen through the roof of the church into a strange room of bones. The authenticity of the vision unnerved me. I could remember my swerves and plungesthrough the air over the moonlit town as vividly as the flight of the Cessna from London Airport. The crying of the lust-crazed birds, my own weeping for Miriam St Cloud, the wild power of the plummeting bodies, the cloacal violence of these primitive creatures together seemed more real than this civilized and sun-filled room.
I raised my injured hands, which Dr Miriam had bandaged before I slept. The ragged lint, and the chafed skin of my forearms and elbows was pitted with small black particles, as if I had been grappling with a flint-covered pillow. I vaguely remembered running from the church in the moonlight. The harsh smell of the birds, the coarse beauty of the air hung about my body, the acrid odour of sea-birds feeding on still-living flesh. I was surprised that Mrs St Cloud had not noticed the odour.
She sat beside me, stroking my shoulder. Wary of her, I lay back against the pillow, surveying the bedroom into which the mother and daughter had carried me after my futile attempt to cross the river. What made me uneasy was that they had both been expecting me, as if I had lived in this house for years as one of the family and had just returned from a boating accident.
How could they have been certain that I would return? The two women had undressed me with an uncanny sense of physical intimacy, as if they were unveiling a treasure they were about to share. I watched Mrs St Cloud move around the bed, take my suit from the wardrobe and brush the lapels as if concerned for the pressures of my skin on the fabric, the traces of my body left on this hand-me-down serge. I felt my bruised ribs and mouth – both still as tender as they had been the previous afternoon – and thought of my dream. It had been no more than the sleeping fantasy of a fallen aviator, but my power over the birds, the way in which I had conjured them from the darkened rooftops, gave me a sudden sense of authority. After the years of failure, of never finding a life that fitted my secret notion of myself, I had briefly touchedthe edge of some kind of fulfilment. I had flown as a condor, the superior of the birds. I remembered my sexual authority over them all, and wished that Miriam St Cloud had seen me as this greatest of the raptors. Then I would have enticed her into the sky, as some shy albatross. But for that sudden panic of aerial lust, and the collapsing roof of the church, I would have mated with her on the deep bed of the night air.
Thinking of my fall, I asked Mrs St Cloud: ‘Is there a museum here? With a collection of bones?’
She laid
When I sat up Mrs St Cloud was watching me calmly from the window. She stood where I had first seen her after the Cessna’s crash, one arm raised to the brocade curtains, but all her nervousness had gone and she seemed more like the capable older sister of her daughter. Had she kissed me while I slept?
‘Did you sleep, Blake? You’ve brought us some unusual weather. There was an extraordinary storm last night – we’ve all been dreaming of birds.’
‘I woke once …’ Remembering my night-dream and its exhausting climax, I was surprised by how refreshed I felt. ‘I heard nothing.’
‘Good. We wanted you to rest.’ She sat on the bed and touched my shoulder, gazing at me in a maternal way. ‘It was exciting, though, some sort of electrical storm, we could hear thousands of birds rushing through the air. There’s been a fair amount of damage. But I imagine, Blake, that all the strange weather you need is inside your head.’
I noticed that she had let a small but glamorous wave into her hair, as if she were expecting a lover. I was thinking of my dream, the vision of night-flying with its nightmare ending, when I had been suffocated within a vacuum of beating wings and fallen through the roof of the church into a strange room of bones. The authenticity of the vision unnerved me. I could remember my swerves and plungesthrough the air over the moonlit town as vividly as the flight of the Cessna from London Airport. The crying of the lust-crazed birds, my own weeping for Miriam St Cloud, the wild power of the plummeting bodies, the cloacal violence of these primitive creatures together seemed more real than this civilized and sun-filled room.
I raised my injured hands, which Dr Miriam had bandaged before I slept. The ragged lint, and the chafed skin of my forearms and elbows was pitted with small black particles, as if I had been grappling with a flint-covered pillow. I vaguely remembered running from the church in the moonlight. The harsh smell of the birds, the coarse beauty of the air hung about my body, the acrid odour of sea-birds feeding on still-living flesh. I was surprised that Mrs St Cloud had not noticed the odour.
She sat beside me, stroking my shoulder. Wary of her, I lay back against the pillow, surveying the bedroom into which the mother and daughter had carried me after my futile attempt to cross the river. What made me uneasy was that they had both been expecting me, as if I had lived in this house for years as one of the family and had just returned from a boating accident.
How could they have been certain that I would return? The two women had undressed me with an uncanny sense of physical intimacy, as if they were unveiling a treasure they were about to share. I watched Mrs St Cloud move around the bed, take my suit from the wardrobe and brush the lapels as if concerned for the pressures of my skin on the fabric, the traces of my body left on this hand-me-down serge. I felt my bruised ribs and mouth – both still as tender as they had been the previous afternoon – and thought of my dream. It had been no more than the sleeping fantasy of a fallen aviator, but my power over the birds, the way in which I had conjured them from the darkened rooftops, gave me a sudden sense of authority. After the years of failure, of never finding a life that fitted my secret notion of myself, I had briefly touchedthe edge of some kind of fulfilment. I had flown as a condor, the superior of the birds. I remembered my sexual authority over them all, and wished that Miriam St Cloud had seen me as this greatest of the raptors. Then I would have enticed her into the sky, as some shy albatross. But for that sudden panic of aerial lust, and the collapsing roof of the church, I would have mated with her on the deep bed of the night air.
Thinking of my fall, I asked Mrs St Cloud: ‘Is there a museum here? With a collection of bones?’
She laid
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