Last night I had a weird dream. I was standing in the car park of what used to be the Royal British Legion club in Livingstone Road, Gillingham – a place I’d spent many a weekend with my parents and sister as we were growing up but which closed for the last time in July 2013.
It was raining, but the clouds were on the GROUND, and it was raining UPWARDS but I wasn’t getting wet. I walked over and touched one of the clouds which was on the wasteland near the car park gate where there had been bonfires in previous years. I then realised I was with someone else – a friend, or someone that I knew who was a similar age to myself but I can’t remember now who it was.
He told me to raise my arms straight up as he did. I watched him rocket up into the sky in the same direction as the rain was shooting, and so then I did the same. I realised it wasn’t rain but actually thermal pockets of air that were lifting me but much faster and with much more ease than anyone could imagine.
I was being propelled forward at the same time – in the direction of Toronto Road where some friends once lived (and I too lived for a short time with them) in the house on the corner. I was getting much too high and started to dread the fall back down to the ground. I tucked my arms in under my pits and instantly stopped gaining altitude. My friend was nowhere in sight but I knew where I was headed – to that house.
By this time I was still being propelled forwards but started to drop in altitude – gradually at first but getting quicker by the second. I was getting close to the house and started to wonder whether I was going to smash into the house or whether I’d land and smash my knees or ankle.
Then I landed – the impact no more than that of me jumping normally, as I bent my knees to brace myself. I can’t remember what happened next, but I remember thinking “Wow! I could get used to this!”