Stan requests that his name and email be kept with this dream
stan kulikowski ii <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
DATE : 7 sep 1998 09:36
DREAM : a talking cat
=( sunday night. mom watched movies on television and i worked on some web sites for the courses i teach. went to sleep around 02:00 after reading for a while. )=
the journey has been long and tiring as i have had to drive an extra long time today to get home, but that was preferable to staying in another motel just a few hours from amherst. even tired as i am, it feels good to get back at last. no matter how interesting the place you visit, it always feels right to come home after an absence.
i am walking across the empty lots and parking areas next to the large house where my apartment is located. i have let agamemnon out of the car, so he can run a bit and do his dog things around the neighborhood to get resettled in the locale. normally i do not let him rum free as his large size can startle the naturally timid, but this time, for a while, he can go sniff and pee on whatever he pleases. we need to stretch after so long in the car.
as i approach my building, the next parking lot is partly filled with rusting hulks of derelict cars. not really abandoned, they belong to a nearby garage, mostly collected for parts or curiosity of the owner. just before i leave the broken concrete with low clinging vines growing through the cracks, my eye is attracted to a new auto carcass, less rusted than the rest.
it is shaped like a low racing car, much smaller than expected. perhaps two meters long at best. it has no rust on it, and is painted mostly a silver grey with pale brown lettering and designs over its chassis. i can not make out any of the words which i presume are the driver's name and sponsors. it may not be rusted but it is slightly bent in the middle so it folds upward in an awkward way. and how does any one ride in the thing? the top which ought to be the open cockpit for the driver is covered over with a solid cover of metal.
reaching down i discover that the race car is ridiculously light weight. indeed, it is not a car but a toy like a child would have, except it is so large. i easily pick up the hollow aluminum toy, put it square on the pavement and give it a slight shove. in spite of its bent frame, it surprisingly travels very well. my small push sending it gliding across the lot into the next where if finally stops. it does seem like a satisfying toy to roll so well in spite of its huge size.
well, now i have to backtrack and go retrieve the toy to return it to its place here where the owner left it. when i go pick one end of the race car by its bumper to drag it back, i notice a police car cruising down the street. i hope he does not assume that i am stealing this from this lot while i am taking it back to the next. when i get to its original spot i put the toy car down and proceed on toward my apartment. the policecar does pull into the lot behind me, but the officer does not yell out to me. i continue on.
coming up to my house i whistle for agamemnon, and he comes bounding up from some bushes out in the yard. he is glad to be home, panting and slobbering from his excitement. i open the back door on the side of the building to let us in.
as we cut across the empty garage and laundry area, i notice that the door to sue alexander's apartment is open. she has moved out so i go in to see what was left behind. there is usually an odd stick of furniture leftover in rentals. maybe i will find something of interest. inside there is a table and a couple wooden chairs. i go through the empty rooms, marveling at the hollowness of the place which had such a warm feeling when she lived here. still, the floors are rather clean waiting for the next occupant. i wonder for a moment if i might move over here, but i dismiss the thought quickly. this apartment is too interior of the building and mine is an added extension with more windows and light.
as i am leaving a see a piece of exercise equipment that i did not remember seeing sue ever use. between our apartments was a common room, really just an overlarge hall that we used as a shared gym area. i drag the slanted back board out into the exercise area. my soloflex is there with all its pieces lined up on the bench seat. i put the back board over near the wall.
with my key i open the door to my apartment and i can tell right away that people have been inside rearranging things. i now recall that the landlady had told me they would be refurbishing part of the building this summer, but i did not know it was going to be so extensive a task. i can see that the entire floor of my place has been ripped up and the replacement is not completely in place, so there are large gaps where i can look into the basement. the floor did have a soft sag to it, but i had grown accustomed to it like a worn but comfortable shoe. still, i suspect that the sagging wood could have broken through at some point, so a new solid hardwood floor will look nice.
my apartment was a late addition, stuck on a much older building. a long straight series of rooms. in the second room, with the door that opens directly on the sidewalk, i see a lot of unfinished masonry exposed where the floor is unfinished. this is my sitting room which had the old square fire place. it looked so nice to step in from the snow outside to the fire going in this room. the old fireplace has been removed and a new one is partially complete. the fresh red bricks are shaped in a rounded circular opening rather than the square rectangular mass of traditional ones with mantles. under the flooring there lies exposed a lot of tube like air passages, apparently to transport heated air to other rooms when the fire is lit. that has always been one of the drawbacks of fireplaces, they draw cold air into the neighboring rooms by sending the hot air up the flue. i can not quite figure out how these air ducts are to work, but the whole mass has good organic look to it. more like blood vessels and capillaries, grown rather than built.
there is a ladder through one of the holes in the flooring and i go down into the basement, looking for samantha, my cat. she remained here while the dog and i went travelling. she hates to ride in the car, and neighbors fed her while we were away.
samantha is a small siamese, white and grey rather than brown. but rather than find her, i see two then three of the neighborhood wild cats curl up in the beams near the water heater. these are very large, fat cats in spite of their feral nature. many of the local people leave out food for them, so they do quite well without docility of house cats. their fur is a rather shocking red color with tawny brown tiger stripes. they are quieter than usual as i approach. i wonder if the nearest one will let me pet him, as on rare occasions they will tolerate a human touch. samantha, being a civilized domestic cat does not like these, so i know she will not be in the basement.
as i reach over to first of the three wild cats, a loud voice says "are you always so rude as to fondle your guests?" i look startled. it came from the furthest cat, a fat female.
"what? you can talk?" i ask looking at the creature.
"apparently. do you doubt your own senses now?" she replies. "i lived once with your kind before my maturity and picked up the manner of your speech." she has a rather distorted, flat nose face with overly, bulging large eyes. must be some persian in their breed. the irises are blood red, rather spooky looking even for a cat eye. and her lips do not move as you would expect to articulate human words. the sounds come out when she sort of wheezes, but i do not see hardly any motion of the lips or tongue. her voice is really a little too loud, almost like a shout.
"do these others also talk?" i ask.
"no," she replies. "my companions are quiet, thoughtful cats. only i have this useless ability to make so much noise of so little value." i notice her syntax is rather ornate.
"would you like to live here? i would like to converse with you more often and i will fix you only the finest foods. i am good with food."
"you can leave out the food like the others in this area, and we will eat what we want if we like it. i can not imagine why we would want to come inside your building like that unfortunate withered cat who lets you live with her. not to mention that stupid huge dog."
i look closely at her long matted fur. it is very dirty and tangled. "well, for one thing, i could give you a bath and groom your fur until it is clean and healthy."
"get all wet? it sounds uncomfortable."
"i suppose it is for a short period of time. but you get wet on rainy days anyway, and this bath with some shampoo kills all the itchy bugs in your fur and gets rid of the dead hair so you do not have to cough up hairballs so often. it feels really good to have clean fur. the withered cat does not enjoy the baths either, but she loves having clean fur."
"hairballs are part of the natural process and does not hurt at all. just leave the good food out and be content with the fact that we will think about eating it if it pleases us." she looks away in disgust.
the male cat looks at me with its weird distorted red eyes: dumb, not understanding a word but sensing the intent. poor humans, all the time fussing and fidgeting with things and so rarely content. he really is the master of his situation and does not need to speak at all to pity us overbred primates.
=( i wake at 09:30 quite well rested. this dream was easy to recall. i did know sue alexander in amherst, she worked in an admissions office for one of the local universities. the building of the apartments was completely novel, like none i ever lived in, but the neighborhood was east amherst where i lived for several years. )=
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