I just woke up, though it seemed to have been an intense struggle to do so! For a moment, I had lost the ability to fill my body with life again as I do every morning. My mind desperately desired to free itself from the dream-later-turned-nightmare, yet I was for all I wanted, incapable of breaking to the surface of consciousness. The first phase of the dream involved laughter and wit. I was radiant and jovial with a touch of the excessive sense of dramatism. This dream was, per se, a musical possessing a script rampant with assiduous absurdity. And in this musical of mine, the dire accusation of my autism was signaled out by a crowd of learned individuals sitting around a table, after examining my file. I forget exactly how they put it, how the calumny lost its offence to the intellect and instead, in its fist was clenched the sense of demure, of admiration. Moreover, such was the dissimulation that I confessed my guilt, having become teary-eyed, naturally I poured forth an endless stream of tears of rapturous excitement. For I was quite caught in the feeling of ecstasy and trembling, as if on the edge of lunacy as I expressed most vociferously my felicity.
Then, the tone of the dream changed. This woman with a quite noticeable and somewhat vexing southern drawl, commenced to harangue me. She informed me that my ‘piece of art’ needed to be completed, that it was all that was required to demonstrate my autistic genius to the Institut. Oddly enough, this chef d’oeuvre was almost finished, but my condition was preventing its completion, the predication of the self, of my self over it. Triumph was almost palpable, almost audable … its intoxication lingering at a distance.
This woman, whose acting and comportment carried the energy and zeal of a neophyte, this is to say an overbearing and uncompromising ardor that overwhels the intellect, donning vestments à l’époche dix-neuvième siècle. This Lady of Purple and White, had the air of anything but contemporain, while I ostensibly was of this age, a struggling artist with a passion. My work covered the surface of this mobile-wall painted in a dark, vile green that stood in a studio, its sole adornment. As if in rage, she pointed at it screaming! I do not recall what she said, what she threatened but the intensity of her vituperations incensed me. I screamed at her, desperately trying to explain my situation. She then proceeded to walk up a flight of stairs, categorically denouncing me for my fickleness, my vacillation from normality to dementia.
And when I opened my eyes, my face colored in the expression of a man who has held his breath for an eternity under water and at last is allowed to surface, to gasp that air that possesses the stuff of life. Thus my eyes opened wide, only to be burned by the intensity of the light in the room. I sighed with relief.