The Fourth Factor

I am in Dream-Prague with Saimi, showing her some parts of the city I like. She and I have both just recently arrived there, although it seems as if we’re here for entirely different reasons, and the visits just happened to coincide. We seem to be in the northwest region of the city.

The place I’m showing her now is one that not many people know about, a neighborhood of winding streets on a hill, neat rows of houses on either side of the streets – a quiet, peaceful place. The houses are covered with what look like enormous cobwebs, large enough to completely cover most of the roofs. I tell Saimi that in the early morning, when it’s misty, they shine like silver.

We then head down to the tram stop together. This, unlike the webbed streets, is a location that’s familiar to me from a previous iteration of Dream-Prague, although it doesn’t correspond to any waking-life location. On that occasion, the whole area had a much rougher vibe and was also undergoing construction. Perhaps with this in mind, I pull out my cell phone to show Saimi a couple pictures of how it used to look.

I input the password first, which isn’t my waking-life password. This one is also six digits long, and the numbers signify a personally important date – there’s a charged quality to the memories the date pulls along with it. The date is December 22, I think (although I can’t remember the year now, or precisely what the date’s significance was). When I find the pictures, I notice strings of triangular orange flags in some of them, which tells me that I must have taken them during the protests.

The wait at the tram stop is rather long (justified in-dream, I think, by it being a weekend). There’s a whole little scene here with a man who’s decided to teach his dog another song (it already knows two). It’s a large dog, but friendly: it puts its paws on me, almost knocking me over. The song he’s chosen is one of those old, popular ones most people know: it has kind of a jazz standard feel to it, lots of seventh chords and a melancholy tone. The lyrics are in German. I don’t remember what all of them are, though, and nobody there seems to know them all offhand, so I get my phone back out to look them up. While I do, a man in a red shirt sings a version of them in English – although I have the impression he only remembers about half of them and is making the rest up as he goes, and he also starts at the chorus for some reason.

Once the tram arrives, I get my ticket punched – I just have a one-use one since I haven’t been here long. The tram heads straight east, neither turning or changing height so that, as the ground level falls, we’re positioned high enough to see most of the city from above. I look out over it. I’m glad to be back here, and I’m already looking forward to walking around all these places again.

Eventually, the landscape changes. We now seem to be going through a park, which is also familiar to me. I’m puzzled at first – I don’t remember the tram going here. But I do remember seeing the tracks back when I worked in this place, and so it does make sense that it would go here.

The plot seems to have changed now, with the dream partly drawing on memories of the old wildlife hospital, a different time and place. I still used to work here, although in the dream, it seems to be mostly a long-time crew instead of short-term volunteers. It seems as if this iteration also suffers from financial issues and is staffed at about half the level it should be to run it properly. This is currently relevant since the people on the tram are now coming to work here as well, which brings it about to where it should be – in fact, it seems as if I’m taking them here for that purpose.

As we walk through the park, I lead the way. I find everybody together out back behind a building, where they're seated in rows on the ground. As I walk between the rows, I happen to glance down at my own legs and notice I’m wearing brown leather sandals and khaki pants that are cut off at the knee. Not far off is the man who’s in charge of this place, who’s grateful to have so many people coming. There’s a sense that there was once some kind of past tension between us that was wrapped up in why I left, and he’d since come to recognize was his fault. But that all seems to be over now.

There’s conversation now, and something about a ceremony that’s going to take place soon, where Rae, NC and KD’s daughter, will break a staff in two and then remake it.

3.7.21