In the dream I give birth to twins but they aren’t human: they are small spindly creatures
a lot like stick insects. When I am discharged from hospital we take them out to the car
and I put them in the baby capsules. The baby capsules have been installed by your friend
from California. The one who I met when he came to Australia to be your best man at our
wedding. The skinny one with very long hair and a pink paisley tie.
I am trying to put the harness around each of their tiny stick waists and wondering
how it will hold them when I realise the long-haired best man hasn’t fitted the baby
capsules properly. I will have to take both of the stick insect babies in the front seat with
me and hold one in each hand. I try to pinch their tiny stick waists tightly between two
fingers. But not too hard in case they snap.
We are now in a crowded restaurant and somehow I have dropped the babies so we
are crawling around on the floor trying to find them. We do this frantically for a long time,
finding a way through all of the people and under the furniture. Then I have them again
but I am still scared of losing them, so scared.
Sure enough I am looking right at them in my hands when they disintegrate into a fine
sand-like substance which blows away. I am looking at my empty hands. When I wake up
I think that is a bit cliché: not that a skinny friend with a paisley tie came from California
to fit our baby capsules—that bit was quite original—but how many dreams must end
with empty hands?

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