St Guilhem

I had a dream last night; the picture is a basketball court and a voice that sounds somewhere to the left and behind me is talking with a sporty, tanned, Oriental guy, with an American accent.

‘Watch’.

He says as he bounces the ball.

‘Watch. O.K.’ Throws it. ‘Good’. It falls, plum. Right through the net without touching rim or backboard.

He carries on bouncing the ball, ‘thunk, thunk, thunk’, shoots hoops and addresses the voice to the left and behind me.

‘There was a town of folk needed a bridge built across a gorge, a deep deep ravine gouged right outta the earth, but no-one had the money or the tools to do it. They held towns meetings and all the artisans and craftsmen sized it up but decided it couldn’t be done. Vieux Guillaume kept minutes of the meetings and they say the town, St Guilhem, they say you can still go there today and read those minutes. Vieux Guillaume sat and scripted what was said, and “Monsieur”, his dog, he just sat there too, glum face on the floor, wet nose dilating and opening steadily, lip picking up spots of dirt, his collar with loose red stitching, snug about his neck. So anyway, they put up posters in all the neighbouring towns looking for the “Perfect Craftsman”, they even called it that. They offered a reward but no one that came could figure out a way of building that bridge. Each artisan or craftsman that came would stop, scratch his chin or chew a pencil end, size it up and sigh and say, “If only…” or “Well…” or sometimes, even a breezy, “Tant pis”.’

Bounces the ball. ‘Thunk-thunk-thunk’. The throw. ‘Good’. The sound of the ball falling flush, brushing the netting and rippling it.

‘So then, one night, a traveler comes, says he’s the Perfect Craftsman, looking for work and heard the town was looking for him. Nobody thinks he can do it. Nobody can stare into his face- coloured dark, a whole chiascuro of shadows that shift and squirm beneath his hat rim- nobody can look into his face longer than a few seconds. So they tell him brazenly, do it.’

Sharp thuds and the dull thuds and thunks of the ball. More thuds as the guy bounces the ball and shimmies past a defender imaginary to him and to me, and there’s this puff of blue sparks that jump out of his hands and disappear just as quickly, just as he throws the ball. ‘Good.’ The trees shiver in a gasp of breeze and the ball hits the rim. ‘Damn.’

‘Each morning for a day shy of a year, through the snow and the sun, each morning the townsfolk wake and see another part, however imperceptible from the day before, however small, another part of the bridge built. The funny thing is, the people have no idea how the bridge supports itself. Nor do they know where the traveler gets the stone. But each morning, the bridge is a little further across the gorge.’

‘Then one day, Guillaume himself wakes and looks out from behind his curtains at the bridge… it looks finished. He rushes out as best he can and bumps into the traveler who says it’s nearly finished, it’s so nearly finished that it looks finished, but it ain’t yet finished. The traveler says to Guillaume he wants to set his pay.’

‘Guillaume tells the townsfolk later that day. He tells them, the traveler wants the soul of the first to cross the bridge. The townsfolk don’t know what to do. They argue and discuss and finally agree to the deal, but they can’t find the traveler to tell him so. Next day the bridge is finished.’

Bounce. Throw. ‘Swish’ sound.

‘Now they have the problem of who’s to cross the bridge. No one volunteers. Drawing lots is dismissed. When none of the folk have any more ideas, they all drop their heads and ponder the floor and their feet, and Vieux Guillaume’s dog Monsieur, glum face down, wet nose dilating and opening steadily, collar with loose red stitching snug about his neck, except this time, his eyes are straining up to meet each pair of human eyes that gaze down at him. One by one they each say, “Le chien”. One by one they chip away at the resolve of the old man and when finally the old man hasn’t the breath to resist any more, it’s decided to send the dog across the bridge.’

‘So they tie a frying pan to the tail of the dog so they can hear it, and they shut themselves up in their houses, all except Guillaume, who they tell to send the dog across the bridge. They hear the clanking of the pan clattering against the stony road and they hear it and they hear it and no one dares sneak outside, or even so much as a peek through their curtains. The next sound they hear is this tremendous creaking of stone and rock, a grinding pound that gets louder and louder as rock rends rock and it reaches this crescendo and at the crescendo there’s this great howl, a real guttural roar of anguish.’

‘The way Guillaume told it to the townspeople, Monsieur made it across the bridge, tail flagging and pan clanking and the Devil tried to tear down the bridge, realizing he’d been tricked, but his handiwork was too strong for him to tear down. The bridge was built. The bridge is still there today. So how about that.’

Now, as the Oriental guy finishes up, his ball starts to writhe, pulsing, rippling and wriggling all at once but he still bounces, throws and recovers it easy enough. And slowly, it changes into a giant ball of elastic bands, but he keeps on bouncing, throwing, shooting hoops.

As he flits about the court, all the trees overlooking it begin to sag and wilt and bend over as if to kiss the earth. The picture starts to bubble and blister at the edges, just as if it was being heated from beneath, and drops gather as the colours of the picture cauterize and run together. Then, even the basketball pole slowly bends and wilts. Then, with a gradual suck and a sudden popping sound, like air scrambling out between a cork and it’s bottle just before it’s wrenched free, this sound, and the Oriental looking guys features disappear and all that’s left is a white silhouette of him and the ball of elastic bands. Suddenly, he pirouettes about to face me and with a flourish of blue sparks, throws the writhing ball of elastic bands toward me. My hands open up to meet the shape of the ball as if meeting a pair of breasts and the ball is cold and I look down to see a collar with tattered, red stitching, loose like ruptured sutures, wrapped around the ball. The white silhouette is crouched down. It stands up. Walks toward me. Then I wake up.