VIDYA RAJAN

Perth / Writer & Artist

Vidya Rajan is writer, perfomance-maker and comic based in Naarm. She is obsessed with dreams, and never understood the idiom about it being to listen to people recounting their dreams.

𓅔

First, at the supermarket, and the checkout person asks "would you like shopping insurance with that?" and I think, of course, in case you drop your shopping. Someone drops their shopping. Later, two middle-aged men, musicians, sort of like from that film about a really intense jazz drummer guy — J.K Simmons. Two J.K. Simmons types. They're sitting by a metal chains, like a curtain. They scoff at people who play regular instruments and then they start to play their chains — but jazz. Their hands/fingers run up and down, forming the claws of some kind of chord but what? They're clearly maestros, and satisfied being so. I just witness. Later, I write a Japanese exam. It's very stressful. I don't know Japanese but I'm managing to write something with the characters. I race against the clock — how can this be so hard? I realise I've written 1-2 pages for each question, but it was only expected — from the whispers of others — that you write a paragraph or so. This new knowledge doesn't help me, as I realise again that I can't actually read anything. I've never studied Japanese so why would I be taking a test in it? I realise in the dream that this must be a dream, so I don't need to be stressed. It makes no logical sense for me to be taking a Japanese test. I am relieved. I suppose I will wake up soon.

(9/4/2020)