Hooltfur

I (know I) am in a large cinema complex. I am negotiating the warmly lit access corridors, being very theatrical, with sweeping stairways and ornate, golden features on the walls. Do I work here? I am carrying a large clear plastic bag with 3 fancy dress costumes in it, two dark suits to either side of an astroturf green catsuit with glittery gold lapels and extravagant white pom poms to finish. I am stopped by a member of the cinema staff – I seem to know them all, but cannot exactly define my (working) relationship to them. I am angry and frustrated at this small, stocky fellow who intercepts me. He has a large ball head, shaved close, a loop earring in his right ear and thick, round spectacles over his small, narrow eyes. I protest that he ought to know that the costumes I am carrying were purchased somewhere else and that I am not trying to steal them from the premises. The costumes are then (somehow) taken from my bag – and in the process they seem to multiply to more than three, including a rather garish, pantomime-esque Robin Hood onesie – and the gathered staff, mocking me, put them on and quickly disperse. I am furious-

I am walking across a stone bridge over a body of shallow water. Looking over I can clearly see the bottom, the largest stones breaking the surface. I am in pursuit of an ill-defined individual, hoping to get one of my costumes back (as well as mete out some justice) when I catch up with him on the far bank. Swimming in this water are several small fleshy creatures. They have bodies shaped much like a human, only more fluid and flexible, twisting and turning this way and that in the flow of the water. There's a suggestion of a skin-like film or web that stretches from each wrist back to under the ribcage. At the top of the neck, and it is a long, similarly flexible, limb there is no head as such, ending as it does in a four fingered hand (although the hand is smooth, the digits round and cartoonlike). I watch these strange creatures weave here and there-

I have caught up with a woman with a pudding bowl haircut and a long, tired looking face. She is soaking wet, her dark blue suit, complete with large, fabric covered buttons, is damp and saturated. I remonstrate with her for taking my costume and, in a moment of absolute frustration – I have spied the suit trousers lying in a sodden heap on the ground - I slap her face. She looks at me with much the same expression as I fixate on the sight of the sodden trousers-