lucyoncolorado

These are the two dreams I remember from Sunday night during my Christmas vacation. Notice that they both feature public baths. When I woke up, I really needed to pee.

In which I am a king who takes part in a revolt to overthrow myself and am attacked by a fellow conspirator's decapitated head…

I’m a young, handsome king with long blonde locks but I’m disguised in Harlequin‘s broad hat and mask. There is a mob of people dressed in 17th century French clothes running through the streets of an old city hunting down four conspirators who are suspected of planning a revolt to overthrow me. Inexplicably, I am one of the four conspirators even though I am also the king. I’m standing in the shadows made by a gas fired lamp that shines down on a café, whispering with my fellow conspirator, a young man who is dressed like Baptiste the mime from Children of Paradise. When we hear the mob coming, we realize that we are soon to be discovered so we decide that the best thing to do is to blend in with the crowd.

We join the angry mob and begin shouting slogans of support for the king mixed with threats for those four who plan his overthrow. In the crowd, I find another conspirator, an older bearded man who is disguised as a peasant. I realize then that our entire plot has been interrupted by this mob and now there is nothing to do but get away safely. The “peasant” has my royal clothes under his coat and he hands them to me. When the crowd passes the public bath, I dart off into the building alone with my clothes and hide in a stall to change clothes.

I leave the stall dressed like a king once again with a large feathered cap like D‘Artagnan. People are standing in front of wide sinks of warm and soapy water washing their hands and hair. They recognize me and bow down. I look over their hunched backs and see a royal soldier standing at a bath, saluting. I walk over to him and ask him for a full report. Standing next to him is a short red-haired noble woman who is wearing a tiara and a burgundy velvet dress with puffy shoulder sleeves. She has shining green eyes and a blushed face. She is the fourth conspirator, but I pretend not to know who she is.

The royal soldier responds cryptically. He is asking me a series of questions that only the true king can answer to make sure that I’m not an imposter. When he is satisfied that I’m the king, he still looks at me suspiciously. He asks how I came to be in this public bath. I stomp my foot, straighten my back, and remind him of his place. I’m the king. I’ll ask the questions.

The soldier apologizes but it is apparent that he is suspicious that I, the king, am involved in my own attempted overthrow. Also I’m worried about the red-haired woman at his side. Has she been caught? I glance into her eyes briefly and see that she has not given me up. She’s told him nothing. I repeat my demand for a full report.

At this point, the soldier asks me a tricky question. He is sly and brave. If I answer in a way that will confirm that I am innocent of plotting my own overthrow, it will somehow also confirm that the woman at his side is one of the conspirators. But if I answer in a way that could save her life, it will reveal that I am, in fact, a traitor. All of my subjects at the bath are silent, listening for my response. The guard has his hand on his gun.

I do not hesitate. I answer with authority and indignation. The soldier cowers, apologizes for his suspicion and begs my forgiveness, all the while raising his gun to the red-haired woman’s head. She does not cry; she expected nothing less. The soldier shoots her in the neck. Her body tumbles over but her head flies off her shoulders.

To my horror, arms grow out of her ears and they start to crawl towards me with the decapitated head between them. Her green eyes are fierce and wild, and she howls with her teeth and tongue showing. I scream and fall over. As the head crawls towards me, I kick it in the face with my buckle toed boots but it keeps coming.

In which I attempt to organize a public bath after successfully organizing a public market…

I’m standing with my mother in front of a series of cabinets and drawers at a public bath. There are many rows of cups on the shelves, and the drawers are full of common bathroom items. The contents of the drawers are in disarray. As patrons walk into the public bath, they first stop at the drawers and rummage through them, looking for a particular item.

I’m organizing them by object, gathering all the razors in one place and all the shampoo in another. Then I put them into the cups on the shelves. I fill the drawers up with towels and toilet paper. My mom feels overwhelmed by these tasks and asks if I think there is any hope of bringing order or efficiency to this chaos.

I take her into the locker room and show her the contents of my locker. There I have arranged all of my supplies neatly and efficiently. She looks at this and is impressed. I tell her that one day, every locker and all the cabinets and drawers will look like this. She says that she wonders if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.

I then take her outside and across the street. Now we are in India in a crowded produce market. Indians push and shout around the stalls and vendors manage the crowds. I ask my mom if she thinks it looks chaotic, and she tells me it does. Then I explain that before I came to this market, all the different vegetables and fruits were simply piled up in one big box without any organization by produce. I explained that it took me a really long time to sort it all out, but after I’d done it the people appreciated how much easier it was to shop. I admitted that I’d had less luck getting them to queue up.

As we walked around the vegetable market, I found lots of strange and new fruits that I’d never seen before. One was a red fruit with shiny skin and the texture of an apple but it was shaped like an acorn squash. I was eager to try it, and the vendor sliced one up for me. It tasted like a custard apple. I told the vendor how much I missed some of the fruit in India.