Sunday, April 26, 2009

#116













#116, Dublin


For reasons that are as yet unclear to me, I have recurring dreams about the DART. The DART is the commuter rail system in Dublin, and I often dream I am on a lime green train car that is snaking along from Connolly Station to Tara Street Station at rapid speed, then from Tara to Pearse Station, then Pearse to Grand Canal Dock. In these dreams am hurtling along a line through a place that is both Dublin and Not-Dublin, in that odd dream-logic. Here, in this photograph, is one of the unassuming railway bridges that this supposed magical vehicle of transport passes over. In person, it's just an ordinary railway bridge. There are drops of rain dripping from the dark overpass and cans of Bulmers crushed on the ground. There's no special magic to it. I look with a casual eye on the yellow sign with the No. 116 and the warning below: "If bridge is struck by vehicle please telephone Iarnrod Eireann" and wonder if anyone reads it, let alone heeds it. And I try to connect that ordinary black and yellow checkerboard arch, that network of hanging electrical wires and branches, that real life bridge with the bridge I pass over in my dreams.

6 comments:

Flann O'Coonassa said...

You have that dream too Therese? I thought I was the only one. Have you figured out what it means when the Pope, Daniel Day Lewis, Barrack Obama and Nelson Mandela stand up and serenade the other passengers as a perfectly-orchestrated Barbershop Quartet?

Or is that bit not in your version?

Therese Cox said...

Not yet, Flann, but I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before this quartet of yours is part of the pantheon of Jungian archetypes. Strangely, your scenario isn't cross-referenced with "trains" in my dream symbol dictionary. Perhaps you should consult the tea leaves?

Therese Cox said...

PS - What on earth were those jolly good fellows singing?

Flann O'Coonassa said...

That's the disturbing part Therese. They barbershopped their way through an uncomfortable medley of Celine Dion, Cradle of Filth, The Muppets (minominaw, ni, ni, ni ni ni), and Nirvana B sides.

You could cut the air with a knife when they finished, because the other passengers offered only a smattering of applause. The pope in particular looked embarrassed. I think they'd really put a lot of work into it, and didn't see the flop reviews coming.

Therese Cox said...

Ah, but one never does.

Everyone's a critic. But it takes a special kind of person to be INFALLIBLE.

Julie said...

The dangling wires are what makes this image.