Joan Hus is the artist name of Martine Lejeune. She graduated with a first in philosophy at Ghent University, Belgium, and obtained a PhD from Antwerp University, Belgium. She’s an independent visual artist and writer of fiction and non-fiction. She is a formalist. She considers the form of a literary work part of its content. She plays the trumpet in ‘Echo der Leie’ the local concert band.

I had a Dream

I considered hiring a ghost writer. However, this proved too expensive. Eventually, I decided to tell the story myself. I don’t know if it ever will be published. Even so, I apologize for my style. The thing is, never before did I use my ability to read and write for something other than reports and business letters. I’m not a literary man.To write stories, you need imagination, but the only thing I am and ever have been concerned with is reality. I’m a practical person with a down-to-earth mentality. I always have been. Of course I have dreams. “I had a dream,” is a common statement. Everyone is dreaming. But dreaming is different from creating. Creation is not a dream.

The conditions of life being what they were, freshly graduated, aged twenty-two, I started working as an administrator at a chicken farm in Stockton-On-Tees. Three years later I took up the job of poultry welfare adviser at the national union in London. And that was it. The next decades, I rented the same tiny studio in the attic of a terraced house in Doughty Mews, a stone’s throw from the office. The window overhead gave me the bad habit of observing the sky. Even in the midst of lovemaking, I couldn’t refrain from commenting on the shape of a cloud. Guess what? The ‘woman on top’ is my favourite position.

After my retirement, I used my nest egg to buy a large old country house on a hanging cliff near Whitby. This old mansion and me, we are well matched. To be old is a cliff-hanging situation really. The speed at which the house and the cliff are crumbling down is the same as the speed at which my body is withering away by old age. I dare say the final collapse will be spectacular!

Owning a large house was a dream I had since I was a schoolboy. Being a master of slaves was another. Miss Pinky (that’s not her real name) however taught her pupils in third grade that slavery was abolished and that freedom of slavery is a human right (ironically, in the world today there are more slaves than chickens). So, I wisely kept this dream to myself. With one exception. On graduation night. With my chum Pete at the ‘Black Sea’, after the sixth Guinness, I lost control over my mental functions and spilled the beans. “I’m a master!” I cried. “A master of slaves!” The next moment, two formidable men of African descent gently took me by the arms and led me to the door. Only when I was willing to apologize publicly, would I be allowed back in. And because I was thirsty, that’s what I did.

Half a century later, Pete, who had made a brilliant career as an automation engineer, gave me a robot for Christmas. I called him Roslav, a contraction of robot and slave. He’s a wonderful creature. In stature, my own height, six feet eight inches, with a magnificent body in polished metal, surmounted by a beautiful cylindrical head. The blank expression upon his deadpan face is very impressive.

A few weeks later, on a sunny afternoon in January, on his way back from the ‘Black Sea’, Pete, his vintage Harley went into a skid and crashed into a tree. He died on the spot. He had just turned seventy-seven. I was deeply affected by his untimely death. I felt miserable. We had been buddies since nursery school. My knees trembled. The only thing I saw ahead were physical decay and emotional solitude. Summer went by. Autumn was beastly. Severe storms and heavy rain lashed the country. The sea rose up above the cliffs and flooded the coast. Schools were closed, homes damaged. Thousands of properties were without power. At the end of November, atmospheric conditions changed abruptly. Temperatures dropped. In de midst of a frosty night I awoke, cold and stiff, wondering what had knocked me up. I turned my head in the direction of the noise in the distance. The surroundings of my bedroom seemed unreal. Footsteps. They were coming upstairs.

Away was the stiffness of my old bones, I jumped out of bed and dashed to my ‘homme debout’, an antique cupboard from the time of the French Revolution. Opening the door I said softly but clearly, “1012.” Without a sound the visor on the front of the cylindrical head slid away, uncovering two eyes, glowing in the dark. “Step out,” I commanded. The next moment Roslav stood beside me in the pale moonlight. By now the footsteps had reached the gallery. I held my breath. I heard the footfall in the passage.

“Catch ‘m,” I said. From within the metal body came a sound, so utterly toneless that it struck my soul like the sound of an angel. In a split second Roslav stood at the door. Before the nightly visitors could turn around, his metal hands seized them by the throat. An expression of terror and disbelief on their faces, they swooned. I tied the picklocks together like dead chickens. The rest is history. I dialled 999. By the time the police arrived, Roslav was back in his closet. When they were gone, I called him up. He served me a toddy (in fact, I had two), after which I commanded him to sing a lullaby, and off I went, into the dreamless sleep of an old man.

One more thing, before I forget, I changed Roslav’s password, in case this story got out, which it did.