In my dream world there is a photo, taken by my son Tomás, who never actually visited China, of a picture hanging in an Inn in Tiananmen Square. This picture shows a British soldier standing beside an Old Ford car outside this Inn in Tiananmen Square in 1918. The soldier had a peculiar similarity to myself - not as I now am, but as a young adult before I started to grow a beard.
In last night's dream, my wife and I visited this Inn, and, in curiosity, looked to see if the original picture was still there. Well, what did we find?
Curious about my son's interest in the photo, the manager of the Inn had enquired from China's public records office about the original picture. He found that the photo Tomás had copied was only part of a larger photo showing the British army in occupation of Tiananmen Square in 1918 (my dream' distortion of history). The manager had obtained a copy of this large picture, which now hung in the foyer of the Inn, alongside a new copy of Tomás' picture. We admired this larger picture.
The Chinese intelligence service had actually tagged all the British soldiers in the large picture, and, there, clearly tagged, beside the Old Ford car, outside the Inn on Tiananmen Square, was "Pte. Thomas Killeen, of The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers."
Where did this dream come from? Well, it came out of the disturbed state of the world as per world news: Russia, Ukraine, China, tumbling again towards world conflict, jumbled up with worries of renewal of conflict in Northern Ireland, or wherever peace is not actively promulgated, and not even I am immune from involvement. Conflict can rage anywhere and Tiananmen Square is still in everybody's consciousness.
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