The Plasticine Dream

I used to have the Plasticine Dream from an early age, I can remember it when living in our Flat, so before 6 years old at least, they finally stopped when I was about late 20`s.

Playing with plasticine was encouraged as it was quiet and kept me busy for a long time, I would make little figures, animals and people and act out little stories....`Mother gets trampled by a cow`...that sort of thing. Anyone who remembers the plasticine of the 60`s will know it had a particular smell, later in life the smell would trigger anxiety in me. Eventually the colours would get mixed no matter how careful I was to keep them separate as I used and reused the plasticine, ending up with a large, palm size ball. It would harden and become unmalleable even when I tried to warm and soften it. I can remember having the dream very clearly.

 And I can particularly remember, nearly 5 decades on, the awful feeling I felt when I woke from the dream, the feeling staying with me long after I got up. It involved a ball of plasticine and a human hair. It was set on the edge of futuristic looking train station, the scene was mostly white, the trains were silent and swift. The people would get on and off the trains, very focused on where they were going, they never looked up. 

No one ever noticed me, off to the side. I was part of the place and yet detached, invisible. I would be holding a human hair, it was long, I assume it was mine, it was brown in colour. I would hold each end between my thumb and index fingers and stretch the hair out until it was straight. And then there would be a ball of plasticine. It would be hard, heavy and cold. It was balanced, somehow....on the hair.

It was stuck to the hair and it was my job to hold the hair taught and keep the ball of plasticine balanced on it like a tightrope walker. I had to concentrate on both keeping up the tension of the hair and balancing the ball atop of it. And it took a lot of effort. I had to endlessly move each hand to compensate for the weight as the hard ball leaned this way and that, still firmly stuck to the hair so I couldn`t let it fall even if I wanted to. As I tried to keep up the balancing act, my hands would ache, the tension in my body building, the ball of plasticine became heavier and heavier. Just when I thought I had balanced it perfectly it would somehow sway one way or the other and I would need to move to compensate and then begin balancing all over again. My eyes would frantically look up for a brief second to see if the people getting on and off the trains would perhaps notice me and come and help. But they were all so busy and focused on where they were going, they never saw my dilemma. 

I hated the dream. Sometimes I would wake with a start and others I would desperately be trying to wake to get out of the dream. I was terrified the hair may break and the ball would fall. I instinctively knew that would be a very bad thing to happen though I did not know why. I just knew it was my job to keep balancing at all costs. Balancing a hard, cold, ball of plasticine on a thin and delicate single strand of hair. A seemingly impossible task and yet one I had no escape from. All I could do was keep trying my best.

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