living room – Michael Seidel, writer

I was split about what I was calling this dream because of its varying facets. WTH.

I was a teenager. I’d biked back to visit an area where I previously lived, to see the friends still living there.

But my friend wasn’t home. Platinum blonde and white, with hair and clothing styles lifted from the 1960s, aunts and older female family friends were there and told me, “Make yourself at home.” I was in the kitchen with them and felt uncomfortable because it wasn’t my place. They scoffed away those protests while they stayed busy chatting and doing things.

The large, bright kitchen was fresh, airy, and uber-modern. Hidden doors and cupboards were everywhere. The refrigerator opened and unfolded like a transformer toy and held an amazing amount of food. My astonishment rabbited higher with every revelation.

One aunt was looking for cheese. Announcing, “I can’t find it, I have to go to the store for it,” I replied, “Wait, no, I know where it’s at.” I showed her some unfolding refrigerator section that she didn’t know about where the cheese was tucked away.

After that, I walked around the home’s bottom level. My friend’s mother returned home at that point. Short and fair, blue-eyed, with pink lipstick and white gold hair cut like Marlo Thomas in “That Girl”, she told me that I was welcome to stay as long as I like. I demurred but walked around because the house fascinated me. The living room had two large, comfortably furnished conversation pits, but the back of the living room had two natural reflecting pools surrounded by cliff walls. I saw my friend’s Mom take her bikini top off and sit back, relaxing and meditating, but looked away, not wanting to impose on her.

Going on through the house, I found a large green lawn adjacent to the living room. No walls separated them. Another front door led into that area from the outside. Two front doors! I was quite impressed and thought, every house should have two front doors. It made sense.

I had my bike now, and pushed it toward the house’s back, where I encountered the ocean. Yes, there was a large beach, reminiscent of central California, inside their house, or the house wasn’t closed in on that end. I couldn’t decide which it was as I enjoyed the crashing waves and different bird varieties.

My friend still hadn’t returned. I decided to head home. I pushed my bike back up into the living room. Seeing his mother, still topless by the reflecting pool, I called out to her, “I’m going home now. Thanks for everything.”

She came to me, putting a tee shirt on as she did, and asked questions about my planned route home. Announcing she was going that way, she said that she’d ride with me, and pulled her bike out. She was doing some shopping that way.

We rode our bikes along a rutted narrow dirt road filled with potholes and talked. She asked me why I liked her. I told her because she was intelligent, clever, charming, and beautiful. I raved a bit about her house, which I thought was amazing. She was distant in reply; I realized she wasn’t paying attention but was focused on riding her bike.

We arrived at a little market where she wanted to stop to buy bubble gum. Small wicker buckets at angles on wooden platforms abounded in a cramped, small stall. She told me to pick out some gum for myself and then said, “Oh, I need to get tongue for the dogs.”

“Tongue?”

She was holding up several packages. “Oh, yes, they love it.”

I was bewildered. “But isn’t that bubble gum?” Then I thought, who would make tongue-flavored bubble gum? I must have misunderstood.

That’s where it ended.

The story begins in a house. I know it’s mine, but it’s enormous.

I’m in the living room, which is probably two thousand square feet. Huge plate-glass windows line three sides. Rain is falling outside. Under one side of the windows, I have a stone wall with a rock garden, small hill, and waterfall. Several broad-leafed green plants are growing in the rock garden. Yes, this is in my living room.

Three cats reside there with me, and they’re running around. My wife lives there, too; I know (in the dream) that she’s in another part of the house. We also have a few visitors.

I’m dealing mostly with the cats, feeding them, playing with them, while glancing outside at the rain and chatting with my visitors. One of them (Bob) calls attention to some water he sees on the floor in another room.

After going and confirming that a small puddle is in the kitchen, I call out the news to my wife and then begin inspecting the kitchen, looking for leaks, until I’ve discovered where it seems to be entering. Well, I’ll need to take care of that, I announce while wondering about its severity.

Then, quick change, I’m looking for the cats. One, a short-haired orange and white tabby, has gone outside. I go out after him. My yard is enormous. One side borders a sidewalk alongside a street. The cat is enjoying my efforts to capture him, capering across the green grass and evading me with mischievous ease. Then the cat stops in the game to look up the sidewalk. Following his look, I see a large orange and white cat (it looks like a Maine Coon Cat) coming down the sidewalk, tail up. The cat looks like a large, long-haired version of my cat. I comment on that to someone.

I’m back inside my house, but I’m gone down into the garage. Like other parts of the house, it’s huge, enough space for perhaps a dozen cars. None are there now. It’s spotless cement.

I’m preparing a fix. Although I knew what I was doing in the dream, I don’t know now what I was fixing, but I was planning to use celery. To fix whatever it was with the celery, I was using a chisel to break stalks of celery into small plugs. I had problems with some of the celery stalks, and then stopped because my visitors came down to find me, and I didn’t want them knowing what I was doing.

After I hid the celery and went to speak with them, the dream ended.

Tag: living room

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