Night Vision

I’m on a trip with my parents and an unfamiliar young man. We were all supposed to go to a casino—and they did actually go. But I didn’t care much for that plan, and so I’ve been off doing something else and only arrived back at the hotel room in time for their last trip there, late on the final evening.

I have the impression that this is a place they’re familiar with, but this will be my first time there. I’ve been told not to bring my purse with me for whatever reason, but I don’t like going around without writing materials on hand, and so I say that I’ll just take my wallet out before I go. But it seems my parents are so eager to get back that, rather than waiting the couple of minutes this will take, they go on without me, leaving the young man to drive us there.

Outside, it’s raining hard, and has been for a while, judging by all the standing water in the streets. As we go on, it only gets deeper, until the car, which is a fairly low one, starts having trouble moving forward. Some light on the dashboard has come on. He curses at the car—and quite probably my parents, who would have had no trouble handling this in theirs. I suggest that we just pull off the road onto higher ground, as some other cars seem to be doing, and walk the rest of the way there. It isn’t very far. He agrees to it.

The next part I remember clearly is being inside the casino, in a large room with a grand staircase, crowded with fancily dressed people. On the upper floor, near a restaurant area, I meet up with my parents again. It’s sort of like a buffet, with tables in a horseshoe shape, each one with an attendant behind them, offering samples of various kinds of foods to the guests. Mother is going to get a chocolate milkshake—apparently, a favorite of hers there—but my father isn’t interested. The idea doesn’t appeal much to me either, and anyways, this is all new to me: I want to try things out before I order anything.

He heads off somewhere else. I get some kind of a soup, and then head over to where they’re serving white wine. I try the sample they have there, which is pretty good—but they have all kinds of interesting drinks here, and this would be a good chance to try things I wouldn’t necessarily want a full glass of. And my mother is trying to get my attention from across the room, so I leave the table without ordering anything and head over in her direction.

Then, suddenly, I feel a spray of cold water—and the people around me do as well, judging by how they’re crying out. It seems someone is spraying people with a hose. I move out of the way, wondering what that was about. Maybe the casino staff themselves are responsible. The whole reason this place exists is to take money from people, after all—I think it’s best not to lose sight of that—and it wouldn’t surprise me at all for one to start charging people to keep things going nicely, once they’ve got them used to it.

Once out of range, I pause and kneel down to make sure the cat is still with me. He is indeed still there and comes to get pet. He’s an orange cat, an adult, though on the small side, and has been here with me this whole time. So far, nobody has noticed him—or else they just don’t care. But it’s still a little dangerous for him to be here with me, and so I’ve been making sure he stays close, waiting until I feel him against the back of my ankles before moving on.

11.5.19

Once again, my memory only picks up partway through what seems to be a large, complex plot mostly full of unfamiliar people and settings. This setting, from what I recall, visually resembled an exaggerated version of the American Southwest—think mesas and sunsets, but more so— although the action and characters didn’t seem to match up with it in any discernible way.

My friend Ona and I are swimming in an indoor pool when two men we’re acquainted with who are cousins arrive and say that they’ve reserved it for a period of time, starting now. I can see from a chart with colored boxes on a grid that they have, so Ona and I get out and sit at a table in a sort of an adjoining area overlooking the pool. There’s a hint of past antagonism or rivalry with these men, one of them in particular, having to do with things from the earlier part of the dream I forgot.

After a little while, the other man comes over to the table. He has something for us: some ara and a loaf of fresh bread, which we accept. He doesn’t say it, but this seems to be a sort of apology for us having to leave the pool.

Somewhere along the course of us sitting there, the area transforms into an ornate theater, where people are starting to come in. As before, we’re in a sort of raised area, this time above where the stage and the lower seats are, but there are other seating areas wrapping around it in a semicircle. Many of the people seem to disapprove of us drinking alcohol, which doesn’t really bother us, and, in any case, has happened plenty of times before. But we aren’t bothering anybody, and if they don't like it, that’s their problem. But still—even though I want to like the guy who gave us this and believe that it was a sincerely meant gift, there's also the possibility that his beastly cousin put him up to it because he knew we’d get flak for it. I examine the glass: it’s quite pretty, with some transparent colored parts in an art nouveau-like abstract pattern—and above that, a silhouette of the Prague skyline. The golden city and one of its golden ages. I briefly wonder if he has a whole stockpile of these just for giving away to people.

The next part of the dream involves the production itself, which doesn’t seem to be taking place on a stage, but rather along a street—a straight, flat dirt road with low buildings on either side, again, with a Southwestern vibe. The audience and actors alike are here—or some of the actors, anyway. The protagonist, a woman in a green dress, will be passing along here and looking into some of the shops, having some improvised dialogue with the shopkeepers, but she isn’t here yet.

I know this actress personally and find her unpleasant—this also seems to go back to the earlier, forgotten parts of the dream—so I’m going to mess with her a little bit. I go to one of the shops, which is selling art, and rearrange it so that a collection of pictures titled “Halloween Bestiary” is on display on a small stand outside the door. I then flip the latch on the shop door, which is hanging open, so that the it will lock automatically the next time someone closes it. I then make sure I’m out of the way by the time the actress playing the shopkeeper arrives.

The woman soon notices the door and is alarmed. If she can’t take the woman in the green dress inside to look at things and is stuck with the Halloween Bestiary pieces outside, the script would require her to pretend to like them, which would irritate her to no end. She is relieved that it’s still open—but just then, my aunt steps out of the shop and closes the door behind her, oblivious to the trouble she’s just set in motion.

3.3.18