The Fourth Factor

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

I am in what seems to be a dorm room set up for three people, although there are only two of us living there. Above the doorways, I can see red text continually scrolling by, which is then replaced by new text—records of conversations, it seems. On the walls, there are a few posters, different pictures, but all with the words “conserve merriment” at the bottom. This is a reference to something familiar to the person I am in the dream. I walk from the room where I am to the one where my flatmate is sitting.

He/she—this person seems rather androgynous, and the dream itself offers no clues—wants to know if I’m interested in going to do something with him/her. I reflect that I do seem to have been learning more from the things I spend my free time doing than from my actual classes. But I still feel reluctant. It has to do with things I experienced before getting here, I tell my flatmate. In a way, it’s like I’m telling about everything that’s happened to me up until now, but all compressed into a sentence or two—a lifetime spent as a fugitive, never being able to stay in any one place for long, just one bad thing after another.

And then he/she replies: “Is that all?” And actually, when you put like that, it really doesn’t seem so bad. Sure, I guess I’ll go to your thing.

We then talk for a bit about the place we’re at, which is called Campa Piri, and another place I can’t remember the name of now. Then I find myself reading a transcript of the conversation rather than experiencing it. I glance a bit further on, where we’re talking about yet another nearby place called Stone Sway and joking about how it totally sounds like a double entendre. And at that point, I wake up.

In the next dream of the night, I also seem to be a different person—a young boy staying at a large house with a group of other people, all adults, apparently. There was a lot that happened in the early parts of this dream that I can no longer remember, but it seemed to involve finding some kind of special thing in this house—I want to say it was a book, but I’m not entirely sure, and so from here on out it will be known as the MacGuffin.

We are all preparing to leave, and it seems that my uncle—my actual uncle, the only familiar person in this dream—is going to be taking the MacGuffin back with him. I don’t like this: I think that it would be better off in the hands of literally anyone else in the world, and it really ought to stay in the house here. But he’s intent on it and, as usual, impervious to arguments.

He’ll also be taking all the paintings that were in the dining room. It’s a wood-paneled room with a long, wooden table in the middle of it, and pretty much all the space on the walls was taken up with paintings, which illustrated various stories. But now he has them stacked in a closet there, ready to be taken out to the car. I’m not happy about this either. I tell him that he wouldn’t have the space to hang them up, and they’d probably just sit in his house, not even properly stored. He claims he’ll hang them up, but I don’t believe him. What strikes me as particularly unfair about this is that it was only by means of the paintings that we had managed to understand the MacGuffin’s true nature and gain possession of it—possibly from some dark sorcerer type, but that’s also escaped my memory. If the paintings aren’t available, the MacGuffin may never be able to make its way into the hands of someone more suitable in the future.

But then it occurs to me—I can make sure the paintings never make it to his house. There are many people here who also feel this isn’t right, and with their cooperation, we can have the paintings mysteriously back on their walls. Maybe we can spook him into returning the MacGuffin. I pull someone aside to tell them my idea, and pretty soon, the plan is ready to be put into action. But we need a diversion so we can get our hands on the paintings.

It’s announced that I’m going to be talking about a painting in a nearby room, and so everybody—minus a few co-conspirators—files in and sits down in rows of chairs. I have the painting there at the front of the room: a fairly small one of a winter scene with trees. I begin talking. I am a kid and don’t know a thing about painting, but I confidently B.S. my way through it.

Just as I’m explaining how the branches of the trees in the painting are reminiscent of the branches of knowledge, continually reaching out and producing new shoots, an older man with short, white hair stands up and approaches me. He is a professor of art history, and he thinks that the branches are nothing of the sort. I tell him that that’s what one of my philosophy professors had said about them. I definitely have the impression that he, too, is in on it, and that this, too, is part of the diversion.

Once I’m done, we head out towards the door. This requires us to pass through the dining room, which I had forgotten about, but I see that the walls there are still bare. That’s good—right now, it’s still too early. But I’m sure the paintings will be back up once everyone’s gone through.

16.2.18