Prawdziwy

My dream changed channels, again.

It was a movie.  It was a dream.  It was a movie inside of my dream.  I was dreaming something meaningless and obscure, then the channel changed. 

 

It all started in an absinthe bar somewhere in pre-Soviet-era Eastern Europe. I thought it was Romania, but I haven’t been able to find any language that translates the word I saw written in association with the name of the movie.  While I was dreaming that I was watching the movie, I looked up its name in Video Hound, and it meant “perfection.”  The entire movie inside my dream was in another language, which I understood perfectly without subtitles, in a language that now, in my conscious state, I can’t even find.

 

There was a rural family traveling to a big city - mother, father, grandfather, three sons and a girl.  She might have been their daughter, but I don’t think so.  The family was fond of her, though.  Perhaps she was the orphan of a relative whom the family took in.  She seemed deferential to them, except with the three boys.  Perhaps she might have been their nanny; at least, she took care of them and played with them and the four of them seemed very happy together. 

 

Back to the absinthe bar.  The mother and father were having a drink when they started talking with a fellow patron.  In the course of their conversation, he began telling them about a way the girl could make a sizable amount of money for an afternoon’s worth of work.  It was easy money.  It would be a lot of fun.  It would bring a degree of fame along with the small fortune.  The mother and father quickly signed papers, agreeing for the girl to participate. 

 

The event was a type of mini-circus that involved beautiful young girls, adorned in elaborate silk costumes and ornate headpieces, riding atop an animal that I’d never seen before.  The event was still a few days away when the papers were signed.

 

In the meantime, while the girl was out strolling through a marketplace, she was approached by a man who suggested a slightly different role for her in the same circus.  As he described the role, the girl was none too enthusiastic about it, so the man took it upon himself to demonstrate.  He placed a large hooded cloak around her.  One side of the hood had a hidden compartment in which he placed a chunk of cheese.  He explained that her role would be to take part in the circus’s opening procession, along with many other young girls.  They would walk along a circular route while wearing the cloak.  Halfway through the circular route, in view of the audience, they would insert a rat next to the hidden piece of cheese.  The rat would furiously gnaw at the unseen piece of cheese, appearing to the audience as if it were gnawing the side of the girls’ faces.  However, the girls would continue to walk as if nothing whatsoever was amiss.  The purpose of this slight of hand was to make the girls appear invincible, thereby setting the stage for the remainder of the circus. 

 

The man proceeded to demonstrate, and placed a small rat inside the hood of the girl’s cloak. She was a farm girl, and not terribly frightened by rats.  For a few moments, everything seemed fine, until the rat went to take a bite from the cheese and missed his mark and bit into the side of her face.  She shrieked in horror, ripped off the cloak and ran, with the man laughing riotously in her wake. 

 

When she returned to the family, they informed her of the papers they had signed.  They were so excited!  She would become rich and famous!  She was none too enthusiastic about their agreement, either, having just escaped from the clutches of another circus recruiter.  The family assured her repeatedly that their agreement was nothing like what had been suggested by that “hideous man.” 

 

The family continued with their holiday, and the girl and the three boys were laughing and carefree, chasing each other through the strange sights and sounds of the city.   The city itself was a lesson in contrasts, with some areas filled with rich and beautiful opulence, while other streets were choked with sewage and rats.  

 

Meanwhile, there I was, watching this movie unfold.  Like most movies, the audience sees far more than what is visible to the movie’s characters.  I saw what was coming up for the girl, but since I was merely watching a movie, there was no means by which I could tell her what was about to happen.  Have you ever yelled at the characters in a movie, as if they could somehow hear you through the screen?  That’s what I was doing - screaming into the air of my bedroom, unable to break through.

 

As the time grew closer, the girl was fitted for her costume.  It included very well-crafted, thick leather boots that were so tall they reached her thighs.  These were to insure her safety and comfort while riding the mythical creature - that’s what she was told.  There were many other girls also being fitted in the same manner, and the air was filled with the casual laughter of a child’s beauty pageant.  All the girls seemed to be from rural families in the city on holiday. 

 

I continued to scream at the screen, while trying to come up with some other way to break through the barrier and warn the girl of what was to come.  I broke out my set of Collier’s encyclopedias, circa 1965, which I had retrieved from a dumpster next to the Christian school down the street.  I tried to find the city, the country, the language, the creature, the circus - nothing looked familiar.  I absolutely had to find a way to alter what was coming!  My desperation was unbearable. 

 

In the meantime, the girl and the three boys continued to run and play throughout the city.  The movie kept changing scenes - one moment, they were running and playing, then a heartbreaking glimpse of what was to come.  The mother and father started searching for the girl, because the time was drawing near for the start of the circus.  The recruiter from the bar started his own search, because he had a stake in making certain she appeared in order for him to get his cut. 

 

By this point, the children had made their way into the seamier side of town, running through the sewage and chasing the rats.  They were starting to make quite a ruckus, upsetting horse-drawn carts full of produce and invoking the curses of shop owners and residents.  People were complaining, loudly. 

 

A large, burly woman stepped into the street and grabbed the girl by the hair.  In their language, she said, “We’ve had about enough of you for the day!”  With that, two surly fellows grabbed up the boys and they were all taken inside a large, ill-kept stone building.  The boys were tossed into one hay-filled cage, and the girl into another.  Well, not exactly cages but more like primitive jail cells, I’d say.  The building turned out to be an insane asylum.  Again in their language, the woman told the children to cool their heels.  She said they’d be given something to eat shortly, after which she expected them to settle down and go to sleep.  She said that if they behaved themselves, they’d be released in the morning.  The woman was gruff, but I could see that she had a kind heart and wished them no harm. 

 

As the audience, I breathed a huge sign of relief.  It was the day of the circus, and they had basically been thrown in the drunk tank.  From my position, I could see that, but they could not.  The boys rattled the bars, screamed and yelled and demanded to be released.  “NO,” I screamed to them.  “Stay where you are!  You’re safe there!  SHE’S safe there.”  Well, being that they were inside an insane asylum, their screams were no more heard than mine. 

 

While they were locked up, unhappy but safe, the circus took place.  First came the procession of beautiful young girls wearing their hooded cloaks.  As they reached the center of their circular course, a large rat was placed into the side of each girl’s hood.  However, the recruiter who had met the girl on the street had lied, terribly.  There was no hidden pocket and no block of cheese - just a hungry rat, eating away the side of a beautiful girl’s face.  The girls fell to the ground, screaming in agony, as the audience cheered, applauded and laughed. 

 

Several other acts, all unthinkably macabre, followed in quick suit.  Then the grand finale, in which the girl was to have taken part.  Inside a type of chute, similar to that used in bull-riding, each girl was placed atop a mythical creature.  Their costumes were ornate and impeccably fitted, and their thigh-high boots were polished to a shine.  The chutes were opened, and the riders flowed out in calm procession, making their way around the circular course with pomp and regalia.  The crowd wasn’t cheering, though.  They were silent. 

 

Again, at mid-course, the girls dismounted, as they had been instructed to do.  Immediately upon doing so, the mythical creatures tore them to shreds and devoured them in less than a minute.  So fast and furious was their destruction, that the girl’s legs, in their sturdy, thigh-high, well-crafted boots, remained standing in the dirt, upright and intact.  With that, the crowd went wild, cheering, whistling and applauding rapturously. 

 

I didn’t fully wake up right away.  I laid in my bed with my heart pounding and my eyes blurry.  Then I got up and tried to locate the word “perfection,” using freetranslation.com, in every Eastern European language I could find.  None matched the name of the movie.  

Reviews

[Emily B]

it sounds like a screen play . . . a novel, your dream may just be the inspiration for your next baby

it is an intriguing story, reminds me of Latin American short stories, I always thought they were a cross between the Twilight Zone and something darker and more macabre. Have you tried searching the word you saw on free translation?