Posted by:
donbagley
(
)
Date: July 26, 2016 05:10PM
In this dream, as in many, I found myself walking through the rooms of a great and neglected house. One room opened on another, one staircase had another above it. Hallways were narrow with bare walls. There was no art or decorative furniture. Most rooms were empty, and there were no restrooms, though I had to pee. Whenever I thought I had the door to a bathroom, I would open it to find a closet. Parts of the house looked like they’d been lifted from the many homes I grew up in. The paint on the walls was cracked and peeling--sometimes rolling off in sheets. Instead of rugs, the floor was carpeted with refuse, mostly short lengths of two-by-fours and flat chunks of sheetrock. The windows were smeared with grease and dust. Just enough sunlight got through the panes to cast a pall on the interior. I wondered how many doors I’d have to open to find a way out. I was certain that my car was parked somewhere outside. There had to be a way out I couldn’t yet see, That was the feeling I had--that and needing to pee.
I finally came to a hardwood floored ballroom at the end of a long hall. It was musty in there and the corners were impenetrable to my view. I imagined that there was movement in the dark places. At the front of the room two flags were hung on six foot poles. The flags had a fringe that would have been gold if I weren’t color blind. The stripes and stars on the flags were black and white, or maybe just colorless, I couldn’t tell. I was gray as a cloudy sky myself. I felt the entire house sigh, and I was sad. I wanted to cry, but my eyes had gone dry. Maybe my tears had run out with my colors. I had the sense that I was seeing through my eyelids. My mother’s voice was in my head like a whisper saying things my ears wouldn’t resolve. She made a hissing and spitting noise and said, “the fungus monkeys live behind our eyes. They give us prophecies and premonitions. They ask us to read the Book of Mormon.” Then her voice went back to whispering meaningless sibilants. Something moved in the shadows.
At first I thought I was seeing a dressmaker’s dummy like in a painting by de Chirico. But it was my father. We embraced without emotion. Neither of us said a word, but we began to move our feet--not together, but with. There was no music, and yet we danced. Our steps were halt and we didn’t look one another in the face. We shared existence instead of words. Both in the same house, the same dream, the same dance. Together and alone.