Tuesday 15 December 2009

things not as they should be

I was visiting my parents. They lived in a home unfamiliar to me, a one-storey brick house with a level back yard. I was attempting to do my washing, but the washing machine appeared to be full. I investigated further and could see that under the layer of clothing on top of the load were a lot of things that simply should not have been in the washing machine, particularly grass clippings and sticks. I skimmed the clothes off the surface, piling them into a basket, and then fished handfuls of the grass and foliage out of the tub. Once all the grass was removed, I could see more clothes stuffed underneath, floating in muddy, grimy water. I looked around to find some rubber gloves, unwilling to dip my bare hands into the water.
Next, I was in the kitchen with my parents. The window looked directly into the neighbours' kitchen window next door and I could see our prime minister inside, visiting with them. He was happy and laughing, and soon the walls between the two homes melded and he was in our kitchen. He asked me if I could edit an essay for him later this week. I told him that I was booked up with other work and would not be able to fit it in. He said he would reward me handsomely and so I said that I would look into rearranging my schedule. He told me that he would have been an editor in another life and I answered that I imagine we all have other lives we could have lived, that I could have pursued dancing or singing and that I had studied them at university twenty years earlier. We talked for a while and I fell asleep.
Later I woke, opening my eyes very slowly, doing my best to orientate myself. I appeared to be in one of the bedrooms of the family home, although, again, it was unfamiliar to me. The contents of my bag were scattered around the bed, some items littering the sheet around my head. I could not recall what I had done to arrive here and wondered if I had been drunk. I looked under the bed and could see a bottle of perfume that I had obviously brought with me, but I noticed that it was much larger than I recalled it to be. I wondered if I was really awake or if I was still dreaming. As I looked around - at the room, at my belongings, and at my own body - I became increasingly convinced that none of this was real, that I was, in fact, still asleep and that this was part of a dream. I tried to wake up, but still I sat on the bed in a strange bedroom, surrounded by my things.

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