The Tale of the Dream Gypsies

Gypsy Lou began:

In little red wagons with canopies of green and yellow, the Dream Gypsies ride through the uncharted regions of our unconsciousness.They follow secret, illicit ways known only to them and trespass without regard to private or forbidden space, roaming wherever their whims take them.

Pulled by wild old nags, foaming at the mouths and drunk in the eyes, their creaky wooden wagons trundle past the frontiers of our minds; scrappy shod hooves and rickety wheels trample through the ripples of our thoughts and splash our words and images back upon us.

They charge through trails of vapour and mist, whooping and cackling as they pursue vague missions of mischief and fancy.The doors of awake minds are firmly closed to them, no matter what devices they might use to pick the lock. So, too, those who are deep asleep are also immune to the raids of these vagabonds.

But for those on the verge of twilight drowsiness, madness or fever - Let them beware the Dream Gypsies. For when they do find a mind whose windows are wide open, doors resting ajar, then it’s more than they can resist to steal in on the quiet and offload junk they’ve picked up along the way.

Like cuckoos, they plant foreign thoughts in our unconscious - stray desires, paranoid fears or even psychotic delusions. These rogue imaginings grow in the backwaters of our minds, growing in strength until the day that they burst through to the main stage of our attention - With chaotic results.

So the next time you see someone snap, lash out without warning or do something completely out of character, then you can guess that the Dream Gypsies have been at work.

But they are not evil. They are simply outcastes from morality, roaming far beyond the reach of your petty ethics. They do utterly as they please. They are slaves only of the insatiable desire to wreak havoc of one kind or another. Whether they inspire genius or suicide, the consequences are unimportant for them. They’ve barely planted some seed of random caprice than they’ve moved onto the next alluring prospect, the scent of which carried to them on the messenger winds.

When I was young I lived in Madrid. Far adrift from my origins, I despised my nomadic roots. At the time, I was nursing myself after a tragic love affair which came to a head one evening when I put a bullet in my head. Despite the disapproval of the doctors, I survived and in my convalescence I put my mind to making some money in the city.

A good head for figures, charisma and large breasts count for a lot in the world of business. I was making a success of a small clothing business but I was losing my soul in the process. I aspired to own villas in the Mediterranean and wear Versachi clothing. Man, I even took an interest in the stock market.

Then one day, after months of this charmless life, I was in my office when I succumbed to the pull of sleep and began to doze off with my head on some piles of paperwork. I’d only just drifted off than I knew something was wrong. But it was too late to rouse myself and I trembled as I heard the thud of approaching hooves grow louder.

A breeze preceded their arrival and I was just untangling the melange of musk, animal sweat and tobacco when they were upon me. Long bony fingers grabbed my shoulders and I was yanked up into a wagon careering wildly along at high speed.

Before I could even take a good look at my captors, my head was pulled back and a fiery liquid poured down my neck. My throat burnt all the way to my stomach with a heat that stripped several layers of skin off the inside. My head swirled with then hit of strong alcohol and my eyes refused to focus on anything I saw.

I caught glimpses of toothless grins and foul-mouthed parrots that cussed everything in sight. Infants put their gooey lips to harmonicas and the mustaches of old women twitched as they chewed and spat tobacco. Smoke-stained sheets of green and yellow flapped loudly overhead and mice chewed at my socks. Somewhere I could smell onions frying in a pan and the horses snorted in front with relish for the chase. Tattoos flexed on unwashed, muscular arms and one of them reached over to sit me up straight.

I gulped as I saw that all the time our wagons thundered along at a breakneck pace, crashing through jungles of archaic ideas and discarded plans, bursting out into orderly fields of bright organisation (through which we tore a reckless path.) and then disappearing into nebulous fogs of the unknown. Nothing we passed through seemed to slow these rogues down and they whooped and yelled at every change. The wheels creaked to the point of snapping and every board of the wagon complained when we hit a bump. Boxes slid around and bird cages clinked together. The canopy flapped hard and I wondered if we were now flying.

But then we rounded some billowing wisps of green inspiration and came to rest in a circle with the other wagons beneath a haze of glittering white dust. The ground was made of yellow, spongy stuff and a fire was already on the go. The Dream Gypsies leapt from their carts with any instrument within reach snapped up in their hands. Before I knew it I was running towards the throng with castanets in my hands.

We clapped out rhythms whilst the young men strutted barefoot on the hot coals, daring any to join them. Their chests puffed out proudly and they swaggered amongst themselves until only one was left to endure the heat. He then leapt to a cooler patch of ground and called out for a partner.

With a cry of ‘ole’ I found myself leaping into the circle to take up the challenge, landing with toes spread widely apart. To the raucous approval of the audience we eluded and flirted with one another in turns, the flames rising between us and our faces red with the heat.

The more we danced the more my identity and past life slipped from me. The crowd called me by the new name of ‘Lou’ (Don’t ask what it was before.). I made a final spin on one foot and then threw myself into the air, sure that my partner would catch me.

And as I lay in the strength of his arms, I took a good look around me; old women threw dried frankincense on the fire, drowning the evening in ancient fragrance; beefy men lay chest down on the ground, gritting their teeth as they fought for sway in arm-wrestling contests; old and young alike rubbed shoulders in gambling circles of dice, every soul involved doing their best to cheat.

I grinned broadly at this aromatic fiesta, pulsing with the vitality of hot blood and wild love. There was not a sleepy-eyed person present and the future offered itself in bottles of wine, savage romance and crazed trespasses through Infinity.

But then I heard something entirely out of place, a sound foreign to this scene: a telephone was ringing. The camp fire began to blur and a sickening sensation in my stomach told me what was coming next.

“No.” I cried as my lover, the hot coals and the Dream Gypsies swirled up about me in an intangible vapour, disappearing into the sanctuary of my mouth, nostrils and ears.

The telephone rang in front of me without mercy. I picked it up:

“Go to hell.” I told whoever it was and slammed down the receiver. On my tongue I could taste the arak and the sweat of the dance still coated my skin. I smelt the incense and horse shit and the echoes of fiddles and flutes teased my ears.

But this was another world. I was surrounded by chairs and desks filled with loose papers, fax machines and empty polystyrene coffee cups, all lit by a nauseous neon overhead light. The telephone rang again and my staff stared at me in confusion. My hair was disheveled and I had an expression on my face that none of them had seen before - It was the look of one who had been brought back from the dead.

“Fuck this for a life.” I laughed and tipped over my desk, sending urgent contracts fluttering to the floor. The phone would never be answered. I loosened a few buttons on my blouse and kicked off my painful shoes. Feeling the ground beneath my feet for the first time in alnost a year, I walked out of that executive limbo never to return.

The Dream Gypsies. It’s not so much that they might steal you away, as that they might just let you go again.”