‘I dreamt all night of waterfalls. (Beat.) Riches. Fame. A glimpse of God’s tail…’
These are the proclaimed dreams of Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron, jaded star of the 2009 play Jerusalem, and they offer an almost complete bill of those things about which we supposedly dream, with love being his most obvious omission. Yet outside the realm of literature these dreams of love, nature, wealth, renown and the divine tend to be infrequent and, if ever they do pass my way, they are rarely as captivating as the more bewitching fantasies of the everyday.
These fantasies of mine are almost always of the mundane, but to think of them can be a source of genuine excitement, pleasure or solace. For the last several years I have had a recurring fantasy, which usually crops up towards the end of term, in which I imagine myself at home, huddled over a lamp-lit desk, intently ploughing through the coming term’s reading list. It is this as of yet unprophetic fantasy of an unrelentingly conscientious future version of me that is responsible for the weekly deluge of never-to-be-read library books into my room and my Nexus calendar being crammed with 35+ hours of lectures, tutorials, and classes per week. Plenty of the 9 AM lectures I have put in my schedule aren’t obligatory, few of them are relevant to my course and, presumably, fewer still are actually interesting. I’ll probably never know. What I do know is that I’ll persist in scheduling them from now until the end of my time at university because of the cosy satisfaction afforded to me by the thought that, with enough planning, I might, one day, get my money’s worth out of a very expensive degree.
Though this fantasy can at times be annoying – as when, on a Friday afternoon, I might glance at a timetable that on Monday was so hopeful, and see nothing but empty, unfulfillable potential – it is only ever self-delusional in a harmless sort of way. However, there are other boring fantasies of mine that I should probably try better to satisfy. The most nagging of these is what could be called the ‘conversation fantasy’. I imagine that this conversation fantasy is for most people, as it is for me, a regularly envisioned scenario. It tends to come about at night when the lights are out, the music’s off, the laptop’s closed and the inevitable bedroom blackness forces you to mull over the past day’s tedium. As you finally come upon that repartee that would have been an appropriate response in a conversation you were having at midday, you tap in to that version of yourself which all too rarely shows its head in daylight: the one that says the right thing, at the right time, with the right effect. Charmed by the ingratiating nature of this imagined character, it is easy to allow yourself to be convinced that this alter ego is a possible, plausible formulation of you. As soon as I make this mistake, I begin to remove this other self from situations of the past day, and place him instead in those that might come tomorrow. Suddenly, I’m not only replying to the comment that left me in silence earlier but I’m now prematurely conducting the conversations of the coming day, planning them and preparing for them. This is the conversation fantasy and it is so captivating because of the freedom it affords you to articulate whatever it is you want to disclose during the day but that you somehow never mention because you can’t find an appropriate pause in the conversation, or because you can’t find the right person who will listen, or because you can’t muster the courage to say it. Yet there is always something awry with the conversation fantasy: the free rein it allows you is too unreal; the patience you imagine other people will have for you is always overestimated in your favour; and in allowing you the conversation you want, it allows you to prepare for that conversation, heightening your expectations of the extent to which you or someone else might engage in it and leaving a troubling gulf between the great cathartic release of the fantasised conversation and the dissatisfying bluntness of actual real-life chin wagging.
The conversation imagined
‘You alright?’
‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.’
‘I haven’t seen you in, like, over a week.’
‘I’ve been busy.’
‘You been doing anything?’
‘Sort of, not really.’
‘What’s up?’
‘Ah…’
‘Well, I hope you’re doing alright. I know you’re just working or whatever but, like, if you’re down or whatever… or if you need a hand with anything, you know you can just give me a shout.’
‘Yeah I know.’
‘Ok, just making sure… And I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I wasn’t here in the middle of everything. As in, if I could have known, I wouldn’t have gone and… I know I’ve been away but I don’t want you to think that means I don’t care’
‘No, don’t worry. I needed some time anyway, just by myself. I didn’t really want to… you know, hang out or whatever.’
‘Well, if you did, I’d make time to be there, see if you’re ok, if you wanna chat and have a ciggie I’ll look out for you and if you’re ever down you can talk to me and I’ll listen. You can share anything with me, you know? I won’t be… bored by it, or annoyed to hear it… Anything, I really mean that.’
‘Thanks. … ’
‘We all worry, you know? You’re usually having so much fun, everyone likes to see you having fun and if you’re not… em… I wanna let you know that I really want to be there for you.’
‘Thanks. Means a lot.’
‘I mean it.’
The actual conversation
‘You alright?’
‘Yeah not too bad, how you doing?’
‘Good, good.’
‘You been doing anything?’
‘Ah not much, bit of work… Yeeeeeah, bit dull.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Same with you?’
‘Yup, working away. You enjoying it?’
‘Yeah it’s quite interesting, takes time though. … ’
‘You want to stick around, maybe go for a walk or something?’
‘Well I have quite a lot to do.’
‘Just round the corner? Maybe take a seat or something?’
‘Well I don’t want to hang around, like, just hang around.’
‘Don’t want to dilly-dally.’
‘Well, I don’t like the feeling of not doing anything.’
‘Yeah fair enough. Have you got a lot to do?’
‘Not that much, but its more just later on… later on I don’t want to feel as though I should have done more, or could have done more and didn’t.’
‘Ok. Well… I might head off then.’
‘Yeah I’m gonna head back in.’
‘Ok, well I’ll see you tomorrow probably.’
‘Yeah perfect.’
‘Cheer up.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah.’
These are the proclaimed dreams of Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron, jaded star of the 2009 play Jerusalem, and they offer an almost complete bill of those things about which we supposedly dream, with love being his most obvious omission. Yet outside the realm of literature these dreams of love, nature, wealth, renown and the divine tend to be infrequent and, if ever they do pass my way, they are rarely as captivating as the more bewitching fantasies of the everyday.
These fantasies of mine are almost always of the mundane, but to think of them can be a source of genuine excitement, pleasure or solace. For the last several years I have had a recurring fantasy, which usually crops up towards the end of term, in which I imagine myself at home, huddled over a lamp-lit desk, intently ploughing through the coming term’s reading list. It is this as of yet unprophetic fantasy of an unrelentingly conscientious future version of me that is responsible for the weekly deluge of never-to-be-read library books into my room and my Nexus calendar being crammed with 35+ hours of lectures, tutorials, and classes per week. Plenty of the 9 AM lectures I have put in my schedule aren’t obligatory, few of them are relevant to my course and, presumably, fewer still are actually interesting. I’ll probably never know. What I do know is that I’ll persist in scheduling them from now until the end of my time at university because of the cosy satisfaction afforded to me by the thought that, with enough planning, I might, one day, get my money’s worth out of a very expensive degree.
Though this fantasy can at times be annoying – as when, on a Friday afternoon, I might glance at a timetable that on Monday was so hopeful, and see nothing but empty, unfulfillable potential – it is only ever self-delusional in a harmless sort of way. However, there are other boring fantasies of mine that I should probably try better to satisfy. The most nagging of these is what could be called the ‘conversation fantasy’. I imagine that this conversation fantasy is for most people, as it is for me, a regularly envisioned scenario. It tends to come about at night when the lights are out, the music’s off, the laptop’s closed and the inevitable bedroom blackness forces you to mull over the past day’s tedium. As you finally come upon that repartee that would have been an appropriate response in a conversation you were having at midday, you tap in to that version of yourself which all too rarely shows its head in daylight: the one that says the right thing, at the right time, with the right effect. Charmed by the ingratiating nature of this imagined character, it is easy to allow yourself to be convinced that this alter ego is a possible, plausible formulation of you. As soon as I make this mistake, I begin to remove this other self from situations of the past day, and place him instead in those that might come tomorrow. Suddenly, I’m not only replying to the comment that left me in silence earlier but I’m now prematurely conducting the conversations of the coming day, planning them and preparing for them. This is the conversation fantasy and it is so captivating because of the freedom it affords you to articulate whatever it is you want to disclose during the day but that you somehow never mention because you can’t find an appropriate pause in the conversation, or because you can’t find the right person who will listen, or because you can’t muster the courage to say it. Yet there is always something awry with the conversation fantasy: the free rein it allows you is too unreal; the patience you imagine other people will have for you is always overestimated in your favour; and in allowing you the conversation you want, it allows you to prepare for that conversation, heightening your expectations of the extent to which you or someone else might engage in it and leaving a troubling gulf between the great cathartic release of the fantasised conversation and the dissatisfying bluntness of actual real-life chin wagging.
The conversation imagined
‘You alright?’
‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.’
‘I haven’t seen you in, like, over a week.’
‘I’ve been busy.’
‘You been doing anything?’
‘Sort of, not really.’
‘What’s up?’
‘Ah…’
‘Well, I hope you’re doing alright. I know you’re just working or whatever but, like, if you’re down or whatever… or if you need a hand with anything, you know you can just give me a shout.’
‘Yeah I know.’
‘Ok, just making sure… And I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I wasn’t here in the middle of everything. As in, if I could have known, I wouldn’t have gone and… I know I’ve been away but I don’t want you to think that means I don’t care’
‘No, don’t worry. I needed some time anyway, just by myself. I didn’t really want to… you know, hang out or whatever.’
‘Well, if you did, I’d make time to be there, see if you’re ok, if you wanna chat and have a ciggie I’ll look out for you and if you’re ever down you can talk to me and I’ll listen. You can share anything with me, you know? I won’t be… bored by it, or annoyed to hear it… Anything, I really mean that.’
‘Thanks. … ’
‘We all worry, you know? You’re usually having so much fun, everyone likes to see you having fun and if you’re not… em… I wanna let you know that I really want to be there for you.’
‘Thanks. Means a lot.’
‘I mean it.’
The actual conversation
‘You alright?’
‘Yeah not too bad, how you doing?’
‘Good, good.’
‘You been doing anything?’
‘Ah not much, bit of work… Yeeeeeah, bit dull.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Same with you?’
‘Yup, working away. You enjoying it?’
‘Yeah it’s quite interesting, takes time though. … ’
‘You want to stick around, maybe go for a walk or something?’
‘Well I have quite a lot to do.’
‘Just round the corner? Maybe take a seat or something?’
‘Well I don’t want to hang around, like, just hang around.’
‘Don’t want to dilly-dally.’
‘Well, I don’t like the feeling of not doing anything.’
‘Yeah fair enough. Have you got a lot to do?’
‘Not that much, but its more just later on… later on I don’t want to feel as though I should have done more, or could have done more and didn’t.’
‘Ok. Well… I might head off then.’
‘Yeah I’m gonna head back in.’
‘Ok, well I’ll see you tomorrow probably.’
‘Yeah perfect.’
‘Cheer up.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah.’
