22 January 2010

SLEEP SPENT


Sometimes I remember each detail, nuance and eye color from my dreams. Sometimes I remember how it felt to run over a human body with a fifteen-passenger van. Other times all I can remember is that the air smelled like pineapple or that there was a swinging door leading to the restroom. Oddities abound in my nightly dreamscape. I dream a lot. If only I could remember all of them and their strange twists and turns. Some are shockingly vivid, others instantly vaporize. Here's an account of one I had the other night that lay somewhere between the two extremes.....

He kept asking for a hug. He wouldn't just go ahead and put his arms around me, he'd just stand right beside me and ask for one.

He shrugged and smiled when he walked away from me, down the hallway, and inferred that I owed it to him. "Who is this guy, and for what reason in the world would I?" was my only thought. I was catering. I was rushing. There was a dark movie theatre that I was trying to escape so that I could serve my tomato salad to the masses in plenty of time, but the doors kept leading to yet another and another dark theatre with that sound-proofing black material covering the walls and floors and ceilings. At some point I was in a discount warehouse buying mixed greens and there he was again, sidling up to me and saying he was waiting for that hug. I just didn't understand. I knew him but couldn't recall how, he was tall and wide-eyed, and I knew his constant prodding rubbed me wrong. I lost about an hour of precious food-prep time trying to make him go away, telling him that the girl he was with probably wouldn't like his other-girl's-hug pursuit. He didn't seem to understand why, then finally left.

Now I can't remember the string of ghastly meanness I yelled at his back as he walked away, nor can I remember why. I do know that I had been listening to Keane's "Try Again" before bed and remembered these lyrics when I awoke: "Why would I wanna see you now? To fix it up, make it up somehow?"

That's all I got.