loading . . . places you're intimate with, places you know like the back of your hand, places that when you think back on, you can practically picture their setup to a degree of accuracy that hasn't been deterred by age. i dream of places i've been to, not every place mind you, that'd be a lot to handle but often times my surroundings, where i live, where i've grown up, where i still visit to this day. yet when i dream of them, they're never quite right. i imagine it's a common sentiment, i mean dreams are basically just a mix of everything you're thinking about and all the information your brain decided to store for the day, or at least i hope it's a common sentiment. i dream of this place, you see, not too far from where i live but closer to where i was raised. there's this mall near me, place versailles, that i've been visiting for years. quaint little mall, a little less active nowadays especially with the shroud of demolition looming over it. can you believe it's gonna take 25 years to fully demolish it ? the saying that "montreal is always in construction" still rings true. yet every time i dream of the fabled "place versailles", the mall of my childhood, the mall of my teenage years, the mall of my adult years, there's something that doesn't feel "right" about it. there is a grass path by its side that doesn't exist and i see it in my dreams every few weeks and have been seeing it for as long as i've been able to memorize my dreams. a bike path, the asphalt practically buried by the brighest green you can imagine, a green so bright it borders on neon. that path leads to two large electrical pylons. the two tallest ivory towers of electrical impunity.
that path, invisible to the naked eye manifests itself like a dire omen, a reminder of something lost, of something forgotten, and it puzzles me. i don't doubt my memories, as a matter of fact quite the opposite. i'm usually well assured that i remember things well to the point of acting as a constant reminder to my girlfriend of things that can't afford being forgotten. but for that green path of hazy memories, i can't ever be too sure. it feels "real", i know it's silly to say. in a way, everything in a dream is as real as the dreamer, it's a manifestation of ideas and memories, concepts and thoughts made manifest, it's as real as you make it. i've spent years searching for this path, so to speak. it's not something i expect to find, of course, i'm convinced i won't but i'm obstinate and curious, the worst qualities for a person like me. when something's got my attention, i can hardly let go of it. my first hypothesis was that the path was simply the bike path that's a little ways away from the mall but relocated via my dreams to be much closer. and while that'd be a satisfactory answer for everyone, for me it doesn't feel "right". for one the bike path there is separated in two paths, one cut off by a horizontal street passing through and wedged between condos erected over the years. it's similar but not "the one". in my dreams, or rather that dream specifically i'm still a child, a very young one at that so could it be something from the past, something now paved over ? i'm not sure either, scanning through both my memories and cursory glances at documents surrounding the neighborhood establishments, i've never found a path there, or even like it really. the path doesn't exist but tantalizes me even to this day, it's hard to explain really. i'm aware that i won't find it, not really in any rush to find it but somehow it just comes back and haunts my mind.
yesterday i went out to buy some supplies. xan is coming back to canada in a few days so i wanted to have enough candy and food in my apartment to make sure she doesn't starve when she gets there. i'm fairly set in my ways when it comes to what "route" i take. i wanted to go to galeries d'anjou, another larger mall that's nestled one neighborhood above place versailles. i walk everywhere. i know the metro and bus system in montreal is more than adequate, it's lovely even but i've been playing pikmin bloom so my little guys aren't gonna feed themselves without my footsteps, plus the weather was nice. not hot, not cold, had my coat open and sleeves rolled up. i left home at around 2:30 in the afternoon, about an hour before when i typically wake up. stuff closes early on the weekends here, around 5pm for most places so it's a "better safe than sorry" thing. i walked all the way to place versailles, was met with some construction on sherbrooke street so i ducked inside the mall with the idea of just passing through to reach its backstreets and then heading to galeries d'anjou. when i reached the streets behind the mall i was compelled by oncoming traffic (in hopes not to get run over) to take a turn to the left to a path i've never been to. there lied a pizzeria whose sign was so old and grime-covered the lettering felt a little hard to read. and on the other side, two large electrical pylons. two benches by their bases placed in a way to facilitate communication and a small path leading behind. one that lead to the brightest grass i've ever seen. https://maraganger.neocities.org/entry2
