Machine

"We had thought that because she seems to know of all that is happening, she must be watching constantly, as if through some technology that allows her to see us even though she is not presently even in the same country," said Franz.
"Yes, that is what I had been led to believe," said the clockmaker.
"But you say this is not so."
"Correct."
Franz paused, his face impassive. "Instead you say that she is not watching us at all but is viewing something that happened in the past. And that whatever events she sees there match exactly events that are unfolding now."
"Yes."
There was a pause during which neither man said anything. The aristrocrat, Franz, had absolutely no expression on his face. Wheeler nursed his lip. Then Franz spoke again.
"This makes no sense."
"No."

Bits and Pieces

Some other things that ought to be here but I can't be bothered to drag them across so instead I'm just putting in links.

Saw
Shambles
Perspective

Fairground

It's so improbable I'll end up talking about it at length and more than once.

Annie (the trombonist I mentioned once) and I were in a cafe in the Brunswick Centre, just off Russell Square. She was telling me about a dream she'd had and I'm going to pass it on to you, partly because she went to such lengths to remember it and partly also because some of the other things that crop up about her are related to this.

She was driving a car in a town and there was someone important in the car with her, sufficiently important that they had a police escort and that Annie knew she must not stop the car, ideally wouldn't even slow down. She didn't know who the important person was, thought it might be royalty but anyway. The first problem is that there was some sort of roadblock ahead so they had to detour and she turned right into another road, this one long and settling down a slope towards the edge of town. This wasn't so good since they'd lost the police escort and also this road was busier. A van pulled out from a side road and she had to slow down. Some cyclists were coming the other way, on the opposite side of the road but one swerved out and she had to slow down. Then there were some men unloading beer barrels from a truck and she slowed down even more. By this time she was quite some way along the road to where it curved right and there was a large open space on the left being used as a car park, with another truck being unloaded by some men. A car accelerated past her on her right then cut left across her into the car park and she had to stop completely.

As the other car accelerated into the car park it clipped one of the men, sending him sprawling down to the ground, face down. His leg was very damaged. In fact it was bent in all sorts of improbable and awful places. She could hear him say "I'm not going in there again, no way" which she understood to mean that something like this had happened before, and he'd had to spend such a long time in hospital, in such terrible pain that he wasn't going to repeat it and as she understood what he'd meant, he plunged his face into a puddle in order to drown himself.

Annie wasn't very good at describing the next part but I think I know what she meant. Imagine one of those tv shots where the camera moves forward fast, following the action, it arcs forwards out of the car and up so that it is above the puddle and swoops down into it, breaking the surface of the water. It isn't gone for long, the only sound is a whooshing and then it breaks the surface of the water again and hovers a few feet away.

This is what she can see:- a small cubical room, the walls, floor and ceiling covered in terracotta tiles. A bath. Water dripping from herself (the camera).

This is what happens:- a door opens and a nurse comes into the room, humming to herself, goes over to the bath, reaches in and nonchalantly flips out a dolphin, leaving it spluttering on the tiled floor while she says "Thanks, B" and leaves the room, leaving the door open.

Annie told me that the dolphin gasping for breath on the floor is the man who was hit by the car so that's what she means. She is struck by the normality of what just happened. I was goggle-eyed at all this and said to her "I'm not surprised you have dreams like that."

"Why not?"

So I told her:- you used to laugh in your sleep, sometimes I used to wake up and find you crying and when I asked you what was wrong, I would realise you were asleep and sobbing. Sometimes I used to listen to you asleep and hear you stop breathing.

Five

(??)
Tom Curtis is a cartoonist in his mid twenties, named after his grandfather Tomasz Kuczynski who is now only just alive and falling away to dementia. Tom's mother rents a small shop and runs it as an art gallery in Brighton, his father is rarely around. Tom is not far from losing his girlfriend. And a visitor from Amsterdam is on her way to see him.

(The Fairground)
Mike plays trumpet in a jazz band that is not doing so well. He is beginning to harbour doubts about Dave, who started the band and deals with most of the bookings but who also, Mike suspects, is cheating on his wife. Mike is thinking to leave and start his own group and wants to take with him Annie, who plays trombone. She is doing well not to let anyone realise she is coming apart at the seams.

(??)
Two freelance photographers keep meeting each other at car crashes, football matches and scripted appearances by politicians.

(The Fairground)
She was thinking that cities sometimes look like fairgrounds. She had to buy a ticket to get in and then spent much of the day just wandering about with the crowds, looking at the attractions. She'd been on lots of them before - bars around Soho, the traffic sweeping along Kingsway and dodging around Aldwych, Gordons, boats on the river. Fairgrounds look desolate at night, she thought, and London's no different.

(Perspex)
Sandrine, a psychotherapist, is interested in the dreams of her patients and encourages them to write them down and talk through them. But she becomes rather too interested in the dreams of one person in particular. "I can't describe it, he keeps...they're...they're just bothering me."