Snippets from Work

I have discovered a new fear. I don't know if it has to do with a dream I had some weeks ago, a dream so terrifying - it delved so deep into my own psyche. That day I woke up crying. I had dreamt this:

I was living in this sort of commune or apartment building with Eze. My sister lived there too, and a bunch of other friends. Eze and I were kind of moving our stuff from one apartment to the next (a kind of dumb move, I suppose). I was moving, in particular, some sort of grill or stove-top range on a rickety wheeled cart, kind of like a BBQ cart. Alfonso came in and told me how nice it looked where I had put it (whatever! I know, this isn't important to the whole dream). Then I decided to do the dishes (cannot escape that chore, not even in dreams). While I was doing them I see this big blur cross the hall by the kitchen and go straight to the backyard (yes, an apartment with a backyard, unusual but not impossible, ask Eze and Alfonso). I realize it's my Dad! And Eze is tailing him, carrying some boxes. I ask him "Did you just meet my Dad?" and he nods. Then I see him, my Dad, coming back to the house and I jump on him, all happy, as I would be if I saw him right now. Then I follow him outside, and I see he's traveling in this new, white Hummer. When I peek inside I see ... Mom :-S and my brother. My Mom's all prettied up and behaving all happy and coquettish, so I understand it from the dream that she and my Dad got together :-S? Ew! Anyways, I don't give it much thought, but then I kind of lean in to keep talking to my Dad and my Mom starts driving the Hummer! (that is DEFINITELY a dream, Mom can't drive a big car!). She's backing up and dragging me with the car. My ass is in the air and she's giving me a ride all around the block.

When I get back I go out with my sister. The funny thing about this compound is that it's more like an educational community that's sharing building space with a mall and smaller stores. Therefore it's got two access points: one through a bookstore (kind of like a crossover between Borders and Castle Books) and another through an abandoned alleyway right on the side of the mall. We use that one and it's more like a carpeted slide with hills and valleys (reminds me of the movie Toys). We slide down into the alleyway through a gaping hole hidden from the outside by bushes and tall grass.

When we try to go back in (don't ask me, the details of what we did outside are totally beside me) we find the hole in the alleyway and I go in first, but midway through the rise up into the compound I almost get stuck. The tunnel is getting smaller by the second. On me! I tell my sister to back down to the alleyway, that we would try the other access point, through the store.

We go into the store and I find it filled with people, with a sense of upheaval and change. Lots of the smaller stores are closed, and there's this ant-like crowd making lines to buy books. I remember then that the door to the apartment compound is the second to the left (the other doors lead to offices and such). But when my sis and I reach the second door all I see is this metallic-gray hall with an entrance like that of a bank safe and some handymen installing elevator lights right by the door. The hall beyond has no doors. I keep walking, pretty sure I am mistaken, but I arrive to the third door and find it as usual. I turn back and I can't find my sister! I faintly remember having seen her turn into the second door, no matter what. This terrifies me, I don't know exactly why, but I get desperate. I call her cellphone, looking among the crowd to find her red jacket, but the answer I get is a man. And I hang up because I know she won't be there. I call Eze, fearing the worst. Someone picks up. A man. Not him. And I know that them, my life, has disappeared forever.

This dream was bad in itself, it made me cry and see how much Eze and my sis (and my life as it is!) mean to me. But today I saw a wall where a door used to be and it struck the same chord. The change of structures, making access points disappear, sheer walls where the entrance used to be. Blocking the view, the mind, the knowledge, the existence of that which is meaningful to us. Terribly frightening indeed.