It starts as the typical actor’s nightmare. I am on stage, I don’t know the show, don’t know my lines. Unlike the usual version, this time I don’t know the theatre or my fellow actors. It is clear that it is some sort of avant garde thing, where the people on stage are reacting to things coming from actors in the audience, so I wing it.
Things are going fairly well until I am overcome with the urge to pee. I decide to exit the stage in character, once offstage I have to search for a bathroom, which involves climbing over things and crawling under pipes. When I find it, there is a costume hanging on the door, clearly this is someone’s dressing room. I begin to pee…and pee…and pee. A beautiful young black woman enters to find me peeing in her dressing room toilet, while she needs to do a quick change into a black leather outfit, which she refuses to do while I am there. She is angry, I am embarrassed, she is yelling, I am peeing. I continue to pee for an eternity. Finally, I am done. I get out and return to the stage for the finale.
The show is over, I head outside to find the sun shining, which does not make sense. I marvel at the beauty of the old sign and decrepit theatre. I take some pictures. I make my way down the city street, there is a trendy sort of hipster boutique on my left. I step in and ask the clerk is she has the current time, she replies that I am wearing a watch. I look at the watch, it is a beautifully designed timepiece. It is running backwards.
I step back out, turn the corner and enter a market area. I am approached by a young man of middle eastern descent. He calls me by name. I do not know him. He introduces himself as Abraham, intimates that we know each other from the late 80’s early 90’s in Miami. He mentions places I frequented back then, but he is clearly a teenager and could not have been there.
I stand outside the fence as he joins a feast in an open air cafe. We continue to talk, I trying to place who he is, he explaining each dish and how they were prepared in the old days. How much it would have cost and how many would be sacrificed to make it possible, but today these items are so easy to get they are not even considered a delicacy. He does not believe that I cannot remember, thinks I am feigning ignorance…
A sharp cry pierces the air…
I am awake.
Liam has rescued me from yet another bizarre encounter. I reward him with a warm bottle.
My recurring dream is that I am directing a play at school. It is nearly curtain time and I realize the stage is not dressed and there are no props. i am going around to all the classrooms and offices gathering up things to put on stage. My dream is not nearly as interesting as yours and there is no sweet baby when I awake. Liam is a doll and I love the name.
I enjoy hearing about people’s dreams because mine are so strange. I’ve had this dream for a long time. I’m in my grandmother’s dining room, and I’m a piece of furniture. Sometimes I’m this huge buffet table, and I’m so big I take up all of the room and am miserable. Other times I’m an end table, and I’m getting squashed into a corner by all of the other furniture. I always wake up really scared. My best dreams are when I’m flying, and I keep getting higher and higher and all I have to do to fly is to run and move my arms like I’m running. As I said, I’m a dreamer searching for commonalities.