I had a freaky dream last night. i can't remember how it began but the turning point came when i was in city hall in some blended version of boston and new york, and something exploded. the walls of city hall hurled towards me, a combination of red hot magma and charred hunks of stone, crushing or vaporizing the fleeing crowds.
we fled through hallways which deteriorated into subterranean tunnels flanked on either side by dingy lifeless chambers. in one of these chambers i saw my family. who in my family, i don't know, or even if there identities match even one of my actual family members. i just know that in the back corner of some midway room was a cowering bunch i recognized as 'my family.' one of the children in this group started towards me and i called out to stop, explaining to them that i had been contaminated by Tungsten 4 in the explosion and couldn't risk exposing them. when they understood and the child fell back into the group, i moved on.
i came to cavernous space created by the partial destruction of a series of rooms. in this space, those of us who had fled were laying down or sitting in clusters, waiting for Tungsten 4 to take our lives. i found a jutting remainder of a wall, curled up beside it, and waited. but after a while i decided not to wait. there was some project i hadn't been able to finish and this tension of waiting had gotten to me. I ran outside and saw a bus heading in the direction of home, but i'd just missed it, so i ran the two blocks to catch up to it. by this time it was night.
the city was in disarray. factions were vying for control and it was necessary to hide. I rejoined some of my younger family members and we set about trying to reach a more secure place, one with basic resources. My father was working at a clinic set up between the university library and the city hall - both only half there after the explosion. Behind him was a lap pool, which i swam in in an effort to catch his attention with out getting that of the guards as well.
He was stuck at the clinic. I moved on, navigating the back hallways of the university. through elevators and portals that refused to place you where you asked them to, suddenly running not only from the troops but from traitorous colleagues who had thrown there lot in with one faction or the other and were now rounding up their fellow employees.
There was some rambling narrative after this, involving a stroll through the streets of the upper west side and a chance encounter with my step-father/JP. they blended, and then through a cobble-stoned sidewalk of a very new england-ish neighborhood. there was a house to avoid that i had to pass. then i was walking on the crest of a desolate road. it was night again, and i was trying to get to Penn Station to take a train away from the city. I went down a long wooded road drawn entirely from shelter island, and then entered onto some urban maze that was half supposed to be harold square and half time's square. I had to ask directions. A wiry middle-aged african american pointed me in the right direction and i arrived at Penn Station just in time to purchase a ticket on the over night underwater train to paris and a connecting train from paris to egypt. I had decided to escape there. There was a brief exchange with the teller who noted that i had only enough money to get there and none to return with. Then i ran for the platform. The doors were closing and i could have made it, but i stayed.
Instead i went to some multilayered pagoda-ish villa. Family, friends, and intelligentsia (yes, that is what i mean) were there, and we relaxed into a more sustainable vigilance against the turmoil expanding from the city. My grandmother threw a party for me, which somehow involved a great many veiled power struggles and altogether too many pieces of fine art and artifacts of rare or ancient civilizations. She had invited a former romantic interest, not realizing that things had fallen out, and thus what ensued in the dream was a series of tense movements between the many asian inspired rooms and sophisticated non-challant clusters of guests in an effort to avoid any contact.
At some point in all this, I was put in charge of a puppetry play with the children. The lead quit and it became imperative to cover this up in the performance or we might put our well being in peril. don't ask me to make sense of that. various strategies were thrown out, one of which was to deliberately subvert the original script in order to mask or unpreparedness with the implication of intentional mistakes. we survived the play but it was a close call.
After this there was a minor skirmish with some soldier who had infiltrated the out walls, then the guests began to leave. I circled around the foyer unwilling to come face to face with the unfortunate invitee and yet unable to simply dismiss his presence. Few guests were left when i returned to the entryway after one such circle and found him sitting on the couch. it was a very long dream moment as i stood there looking at him looking at me. In my mind there was hostility and pain, sadness and longing, and other less admitable emotions in the mix. I was not standing there debating whether to speak or whether to sit down or whether to simply walk away. I was standing there coming to fully absorb the implications and nuances of the fact that there were no possibilities. Despite full knowledge that it was the worst thing i could do for myself, there was no question of whether i'd sit down. it was inevitable, and it was this inevitability that i stood there grappling with.
and then i sat down.
Recent Comments