I am trying to make a u-turn in my car into oncoming traffic when I notice a group of people marching in parade. Somehow I mange to complete my u-turn behind these people; less a parade I see now, and more like a funeral procession.

I am on foot. I walk behind the slow moving procession. Someone holds a banner aloft to commemorate the priest who has died. The banner holds the photograph of this priest in all his finery, his image akin to those I have seen in a sepulchre atop one of the Eugenien hills in Italy. The photo of the priest presumably was taken while he was alive but in it he looks already dead.

The slow moving people in the procession have left an empty lane to one side through which those not part of the parade can pass at a normal pace. I walk with a group of strangers behind the procession. My unknown to me companions are not involved with the funeral but they seem happy enough to dawdle along behind. I break off from them and take off down the empty space.

‘I’m in a hurry,’ I call back to my unknown companions.

Then I find I am with an old boyfriend. We kiss for a long time. In between kisses he notices that the lower half of my legs are covered in long black hairs, unevenly spaced along both legs. In some places small tufts sprout. Their roots seem half dislodged around a few reddened hair follicles that have become infected. I am ashamed at the sight of them. My boyfriend says nothing. He must leave me now to go off for his therapy session, but he tells me that he does not mind being late.

‘You must not be late,’ I say to him. I offer to drive him in my car. His therapy session begins at 9 am. Just as we are about to leave another friend arrives. Now my boyfriend is my husband. This other friend then tries to talk my husband out of going to his therapy.

The alarm sounds and I wake up.