ErraticHopper

I was half-asleep when this one came to me. It's mixed in with details of what I was reading when I dozed off and I can remember a bit of a story!

I am in a boarding school - the buildings are somewhat old. All are built in different colours of brick as far as I can see. I'm eating lunch at a small, square table in the large canteen - a little ways off I can see a white brick pillar capped with brown bricks, and beyond it a broad vague expanse. A girl is sitting across from me, but she's nobody I know. She's eating a hot dish - it looks to me like white rice covered with a thick layer of tomato sauce and then sprinkled with walnuts (would this actually taste good???). I notice and register that our school should be a nut-free one, but pass it off thinking that perhaps she brought her own food. I am allergic to nuts.

A teacher (who I recognise) approaches us and sits near our table. As she's talking, for some reason I decide to try a bite of my companion's dish. Chewing absentmindedly, I suddenly remember that I can't eat nuts and spit out the one in my mouth. I see it's been slightly chewed and I feel myself start breathing faster as fear bolts through my body. Meanwhile, the teacher has left some time before without my noticing. Hurrying up to my dorm room I tell myself that this is just a panic reaction and I'll be fine, since I didn't even swallow.

I arrive at the door to my room. The dormitories are laid out along open-air walkways which form a square around a central courtyard and rise for several levels, all in the same white and brown brick: the balconies are white, capped with brown. The walls of the building are brown. A blond-haired boy steps out in front of me and begins speaking, but I push past him and begin heading back downstairs - when I realise I was in such a rush that I forgot to pick up my EpiPen. So I run back, get it, and go back to lunch. But I never suffer an allergic reaction.

Later, a Christmas celebration. Most of the school is crowded into the brown-brick church. It's Victorian-style and reminds me of the chapel on the grounds of another well-known boarding school. Organ music drifts across the snowy churchyard to our ears as we wait for the service to begin. I am outside the church, skipping the service with my friends, the chilly air chafing harshly against my face, and the snow still falling.