Sixty-Three: Cinema Veriturkish

The dream camera swings back and forth: between the blue sky, down to rows of pale beige and brown army tents, and finally to shaded yellow grass, then up again. As it swings, and in the rhythm of the movement, a voice is singing "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" in Turkish. As the scene enlarges the singer comes into view as well as the method of swinging: The singer is Daniel Day-Lewis and he's swinging on a rope made of hemp and flags. It's a single rope with a loop at the bottom where his feet go.

I'm sitting nearby watching (and listening and probably napping). We're both dressed in Turkish military uniforms. [I'm also considered, apparently, to be a man, but since this is viewed through my eyes I can't see what I look like ... but I'm guessing they don't allow women into the Turkish army.]

A third soldier with dark hair [no celebrity, but maybe a little like the Colin Farrell look ... so for identification purposes we'll call him Colin for the rest of this blog entry] comes up, looks around first, and then points to a knapsack in his hands. Daniel stops swinging and Colin waves for us to follow.

Casually, the three of us walk through the camp and out to the bush on the other side. When we're out of view of the soldiers, Colin turns around and shows us the contents of the knapsack: golf balls, chocolate, two bananas, a bottle of whiskey and a roll of filament tape.

"It's for your shoulder," Colin says to me, in English. I have a sword cut on my left shoulder, but it's illegal to bandage wounds in [my dream version of] the Turkish army. "No one will know. This stuff is practically invisible."

While he's closing the wound -- and it stings like crazy! -- we're passing the whiskey bottle. Daniel nods ahead of us to a school yard. "Civilization," he says. "That's what we're bringing to this place, right?"

We move closer to watch a circle of children pass a ball around. A little girl with long, curly, red hair skips two players and, in dodgeball fashion, throws the ball at a smaller girl who drops it.

"Stupid! What's the matter with you anyway!" she yells.

"Hey!" barks Daniel, stopping everything. "That's no way to talk to someone. You don't want to grow up to be a bitch, do you?"

I'm stunned by the name-calling, but not the red-head. "I am grown up," she says. "I'm 25."

"Well," says Daniel. "I guess it's okay [!] to call you a bitch then."

We walk away and she follows, hooking up with Colin who gives her the two bananas from the knapsack. Drums can be heard in the distance and we stop. That means we'll be fighting again. Daniel is looking out over the fields of yellow grass to the mountains in the distance. I look back and Colin has gone off with his date.

What have they got to lose? I'm thinking, as I watch Daniel walk through the grass, letting his hands trail over the tops. He's humming "Sweet Low Sweet Chariot" again. By tomorrow we could all be dead ... even Daniel ... who always seemed too sensitive to be a soldier ...