The reason I was there was that the art school guys wanted to come, but needed someone with them who knew how to fight. That, and because five days earlier I had given up on this world. I had given myself six days to find something worth living for, or I would 'take a bow, and say goodnight'. I had nothing else going for me. It was a new depth of desperation.

It was during a particularly irritating attempt at music that I noticed her. Who could not? In between all the epileptic robots dressed in various shades of black, was a faere-angel, in ballet shoes, and a faere dress. She was clearly listening to something other than the profane attempt at music that the Goths were having seizures over. She was actually managing to find a rhythm, and she had the prettiest smile on her face too. She seemed to like the idea of all this angst. It made her stand out like an oasis in the desert. To this day I have never seen anyone or anything more beautiful.

I had found something worth living for. Although she turned my advances down, I did not mind. She was still worth living for. That's the type of magic she radiated.

Several years later, she was the prize in a duel between two fops. They were literally pulling her apart. Each one had her by an arm, and they were having a tug-of-war. She was giggling at being pulled this way and that, whilst surrounded by a hoard of onlookers. To everyone's amusement, I suggested that the two of them should have a duel to decide who gets her. So they let her go and started yelling and screaming at each other in high pitched whines. Pushing and shoving a bit for emphasis.

While the two of them became more interested in each other than her, she turns to me and says, 'Perhaps you are the one I should be with anyway?' We sneak off together without the 'duelers' noticing. 'So do you want to go out with me then?' she says as we head back to her place.

At that point I was 'in love' for the first time with a dyed-red-hair Irish girl who would later dump for a motor car and its driver.

'No, I'm not the kind of guy who dumps one girl for another. Lets just smoke a joint instead. I wouldn't want to get in a fight with those two anyway, their screaming is so high-pitched, I would most likely burst an ear drum.' She gives me the perfect smile, and her eyes sparkle like emeralds in the dust.

We smoke the joint and lie down in the church field, the tops of our heads touching each other, while our bodies are as far apart as they could be. I'm telling her the names of the stars and the constellations. We see a shooting star, blazing across the heavens. I walk her home, and then go back to the Irish girl.

The Irish girl dumps me for the motor car, and I have nowhere to live anymore. So the faere offers to look after unemployed me. One of the fops has moved in with her though : presumably the one who screamed at the highest pitch. She invites me to live with them anyway.

'Two guys cannot live with one girl.'

'Why not?'

'It will end in a fight.'

'So you'd easily beat him.'

'As long as I am wearing earplugs.'

'So just move in, and he will leave.'

'That's not how I do things. You must tell him to leave first.'

'I can't. I've known him all my life. We grew up together. He's like my brother.'

Some other kind soul offers me shelter from the harsh daylight, and the chance is lost.

Nearly ten years after I first met her, I am 'in love' with a Chinese girl. I am buying tickets for some plays, and to my surprise, my faere-angel is working the computer. I stand in her queue, even though it is the longest. She only notices me in the crowd when it is my turn.

Her emeralds sparkle like faere eyes when she sees me. We talk over each other, unable to have a proper conversation. I forget the words we used. They were discordant noises without meaning. But her eyes are saying 'take me away from here, run away with me forever.'

I don't. Instead I remain loyal to the Chinese girl, who later dumps me for a motor car and its driver.

A short time after this, I am walking down the road with a friend who would later loot my house and steal money from me. He says to me 'Remember Anne Store, the faere?'

'Of course, I can never forget her.'

'She died in a head-on collision in Cape Town.'

The story is confirmed by her ex-boyfriend, a good guy who dumped her because he 'couldn't go out with a faere'.

Ten years after this I have become celibate due to being dumped by my wife for a forged foreign work permit. At least that is the excuse the lawyers told me. The truth is obviously worse than that. More terrible than anything else in this light romantic short story.

I am experimenting with sleep deprivation. I stay awake for three days, then I sleep for two days, waking only for the needs of the body, and the occasional hand-rolled cigarette. The dreams are incredible. Vivid and more real than this world.

I have not slept for three days, and finally my mind comes to a rest, and I sleep the first few hours deeply without dreaming. I awaken and have a cup of Chinese Jasmine tea, a rum and maple cigarette, and then go back to sleep, knowing I will dream intensely. As I put my head on the buckwheat pillow, and rest my body on the two-by-two meter futon, I feel a perfect peace come over me. It is the best feeling in the world to just lie in the dark. The only thing I feel except peace and love, is a mild curiosity as to why it feels so good to just stare into the darkness.

A little while later I awaken with my treasured dream:

In the dream I wake up in a student commune, I had been sleeping on the floor surrounded by girls. The girl next to me has sparkling green eyes and a faere nose. We spend the dream walking through the streets arm in arm. It feels great to just be with her. Its a perfect dream. Better than being alive and awake.

After waking on my futon, I am elated. I have a cup of tea and a smoke, then go back to sleep, just hoping that the dream will continue. It does. I am walking around the same streets. I find my way to various girls' houses, but cannot find her. I wake up and have another smoke.

I go back to sleep and try again. This time I know that I am dreaming and eventually I find her. We go back to her house. The door is barricaded with dozens of Samurai swords. She dismantles the barricade and we go inside. She pushes the intercom button and says into it 'help! help! I am being attacked.' Then she smiles at me in a friendly and amused way. This is typical Anne, full of nonsense.

A guy dressed in black wielding a dozen Samurai swords appears at the door, and starts to attack me. I am unarmed, but I manage to dodge the blades. Several times the blades slightly nick him as I somehow reflect his aggression back onto him. Then one of the swords slices into his foot, right to the bone. Anne says 'good old cuddle cat' and points up. I can see old cat fur on the wall which seems to have helped deflect the blade into his foot. I cannot see the cat though.

I wake up, have cup of tea and eat some glazed dates. Then, I go back to sleep again. The dream carries on in the same house.

It is a posh house with a piano. I am with her, and she has on ballet shoes, like she always did. I sit down to play the piano. All the keys are various widths and sizes. Interesting. I play anyway. Somehow I intuitively know how to play this strange piano. I play a few notes, and Anne pushes me out of the way, 'No, I want to play - me!'

I notice half a dozen Goths are watching the piano recital. They vaguely resemble the people from Club Foot. One of them looks at me and says 'I am deeply troubled, my friend.' He has a creased brow and he does look deeply troubled. I feel slightly threatened, but he has called me 'friend' so that eases me.

I am aware now that most of these people are ghosts. This is their purgatory. I am aware that I am dreaming. I also intuit that they are all troubled by their fate, living in this ghost world. So I give them the answer they need:

'The universe is infinite. Time can never be wasted because time is infinite. Mortality is an illusion. All of us, the living, and the ghosts, are merely embryos.'

I look to where Anne is sitting on a couch. She has a perfect smile on her face and she looks incredible. She smiles to the Goths. The smile says 'See, I told you that this guy knows exactly what he is doing.'

I wake up, have a smoke, and then try twice more to keep the dream going. The next dream I am trying to drive a car through a gate. Each time I get out and open the gate, then get back into the car, the gate is closed again. The following dream I am trying to shoot a target with a rifle. I cannot put the cross hairs on the target. Its too far away and the image of the cross hairs bounces around too much. A voice says 'don't shake it around or it loses its accuracy.'

These last two dreams just annoy me. The vision is complete. I never drive or use weapons, they have no value to me, the dreams just emphasize this. I have had other dreams similar to the ghost dreams. Dreams of other people, now deceased in their respective purgatories. They feel very real, I do not doubt them, nor consider them to be mere dreams. The ideas in them are more profound than most conversations I have with living people. Many of the people I know, seem to be living ghosts. Many of the ghosts I dream of, are more interesting company than the living are.

Life after death is a certainty for me. How it may happen exactly, still eludes me somewhat. The love of my life is dead, but I have dreamt of her several times. I always awaken feeling exalted. I touch her, talk to her, love her, I even made love with her once, but it was not an erotic dream, just a gentle caress more than real sex. Lately, I have begun to believe that if I stay loyal to my vision, then the day that I will smell her living flesh will come about sooner.

I detest motor cars. People keep trying to coerce me into driving the things. I detested them before they took her flesh from me. I have always hated them. Its not dying that bothers me that much, more the statistical chance of dying that is so high. But more than that, its killing others. Its the suffering, the trauma, the loss of love and limb. I have lost 35 friends and acquaintances to those monstrosities.

Instead of drive one of those things, I would rather go for a long swim in the middle of winter. Just swim and swim. I'll head south in the direction of Antarctica, toward the coolest deepest blackest ocean. A one way trip. Just keep going until the depths of darkness swallow me. You never know, I may just get saved by a mermaid. One with sparkling green eyes.

Life after death is a belief that I never have doubted. And love after death is my essence.

And one day, maybe in a thousand years time, I will taste the lips of true love. The type of love that cannot be dumped for a motor car or a forged foreign work permit, as the law requires. The type of love that not only transcends death, but the type of love that is embellished by death.

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