Have awoken from a rather curious dream. I am back in school. There are two classes; I am supposed to go to one of them (downstairs, male teacher) but sneaked away to a different one (upstairs, (female teacher.) The dream appears to be in Thailand, pre-air conditioning — the 1960s.

The upstairs class is airy, pastel-cream-white walls, sparsely attended, high ceilings. The teacher is a middleaged (well maybe in her 50s) blond but greying, some wrinkles, always smiling, and though Caucasian reminds me greatly of M.R. Smansnid, my brilliant teacher at Patana.

The downstairs class is infested with cockroaches; I had secretly sprayed the class that morning which I why I don't want to be there.

I do go downstairs for a while. There is a staircase, wooden, angled with a landing. The wood is painted grey. I come down and stand on the landing/ I can hear the other teacher droning away in the other classroom and know there is only one student left there, a girl. I already smell the cockroach spray. It is sickening and I go back up.

When I get back to the class they are watching a video about the moon landing (putting this dream squarely in my childhood years). The teacher says, "Oh you've come back. You been gone twice, without any excuse, a total absence of two hours. Why?"

Very guiltily I tell her about how there was an infestation downstairs and how the smell of cockroach spray has driven me up to her classroom.

She says, "I would feel that way myself." And smiles a wrinkly smile, showing me all is forgiven.

The moon landing continues to play on big monitors in the schoolroom.

(Though I don't see the cockroaches I can help but think of Kafka.)