Lucerne, Switzerland

Bronze age village, Lucerne

03:13-03:17 Although her eyes are closed and she is still physically asleep, her grandmother gently calls to her with an invitation to visit another place of interest. April asks where and is told a bronze age lake village in Lucerne, Switzerland. She queries the use of the phrase bronze age and her grandmother replies, You'll find out when you get there. There is a fifteen-second vertical ascent followed by a similarly steady descent through a clear morning sky to solid land. She arrives barefoot, standing on smooth dark-brown rock and guesses the time to be around 06:00. There is a background of mountains and trees. She looks around and sees five or six wooden house-like structures on stilts extending out to the middle of a lake, each connected via a wooden bridge. These, she says, are like the kelong mentioned in the Pulau Ubin adventure recounted in An Adjacent Place. She spots a rowing boat moving serenely away from one house, a solitary man taking it towards the centre of the lake. Her grandmother lets her explore for a minute before taking her hand again. She leads April to one empty house where she sees laid out a pair of old fashioned shoes, some old pants, a buttoned shirt and a black scarf with some kind of metal clasp to fasten it at the neck. She thinks the clothes belong to the man. Then, they walk along a bridge to a space on the shore. There, with an unusual movement of her hands, her grandmother seems to excavate the earth, revealing several metallic but unblemished helmets, antique water bottles, some swords and other implements, and beyond them all, five to eight human skeletons. Finally she turns to April and asks, Are you happy with what you have seen today? She replies, Yes, I appreciate it very much. Her grandmother smiles and asks if she is ready to go back to her room now. But can we go somewhere else first? Her grandmother nods. Yes, but next time little girl. She then gently lifts her and guides her back to our room in Clementi. She says they both see me laughing in the midst of my own unrecalled dream, before her grandmother leaves her to get a few hours of regular sleep before the new day commences.