I AM SWIFT PURPOSE          As I drag my baggage along the familiar lane that leads towards childhood, I sense the beginnings of a lucid dream: by thought alone, I can magnetise my cases so that they adhere to each other very well.  I can attach wheels. It is years since I visited Leighton and Gladys. They dwell among the clapboard gables of a hillside estate.  On arrival at their home, I immediately start the unloading, the discarding.   I borrow a waste bin for the smaller items: the unwieldy ones tumble around it.  The more keenly I focus on symmetry, the more fretful I become. I cannot stay here long: it is too enclosed, too cluttered with Gladys’s hairgrips and Leighton’s railway magazines.  I walk into the centre of the village and announce to passers by that not only is this a dream – but also that they are variations on the dreamer.   For a while, I act the magician, proving my status by manoeuvring a left finger through my right hand. “Look! No blood!”  I fail to restrain myself.  “See how I levitate!”  I rise as far as the rooftops.  “You can do it too,” I persist.   There is little response, so I look towards the ironmonger’s and summon a saucepan lid: stainless steel comes flying into my cupped hope.  I will it to return to its matching pan – till it does. Fastened at the base of my throat, there is an amethyst brooch with scalloped edges.  More than one person attempts to remove it:  Felix is the last: he taps on my shoulder before he unclasps it.  I am swift purpose: I glide through the closed doors of an undertaker’s parlour.  On its woollen floor there are twin purple toys: mindful of my brooch, I lay it to rest between them. It occurs to me that my role as entertainer is over: dreams are for self-healing as well as performance. I can still levitate.   Needing untainted air, I quieten the past and move westwards.  What I require is nothing less than the sea.   Freed from possession, I learn about patience as range after range of hills are unveiled before me.  I keep following the sun – trusting it to show me the coast. Copyright © JENNY JOHNSON     First published in Orbis