Tag: neighbors

The Water Dream

So there I was…

I’d turned on the water, apparently to water the lawn, a problematic decision because snow and ice loaded the land. I realized all that when I went back and discovered that everything was flooded by a couple inches because I’d left the water on. People were looking out their windows like genuine looky lous. I could hear them commenting, telling each other, “Oh, poor Michael. Look at him. What’s wrong with him?”

The house where I turned on the water belong to Mom. So I figured I needed to turn off that water and reimburse her for what was sure to be an expensive water bill. I had a small paper bag with some money in it, but first things first: I was naked. I needed to dress. I had clothes. Most of it was very fancy. So I dressed out there in the flooded yard in front of the watching neighbors, first with undies, then with a pressed pink dress shirt, finally black dress pants.

Before I could get to my shoes, I saw Mom and accosted her. Her children, my sisters, were with her, as young children. I explained about turning the water on and leaving it on, and that I owed her, so I wanted to give her some money. Reaching into the bag, I pulled out a bundle of money, estimating it as $40,000, and gave it to Mom. She protested, “That’s too much,” but I insisted she take it.

She left and put on my shoes. As I finished that, ‘Dad’ approached. This father was a squat, chunky guy, no at all like my real father. Dressed in a black suit with a white shirt and short black tie, he wore a black bowler hat. I knew he was a drunk and was dismissive and scornful of him. He knew this but still approached, asking, “Can you spare ten dollars for me?” I knew he’d use it for booze but I said, “Yes, of course,” and ended up giving him $40. He profusely thanked me. I replied, “I can spare it.”

As Dad thanked me again and again and walked away, I opened my bag to get a sandwich and eat. As I pulled the sandwich out, I realized the bag was larger than first thought, and full of newly bundled money. As I gawked at the bundles of cash, I thought, there must be four million dollars in there.

Dream end.

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Encounter

He encountered his neighbor as she walked her son’s dog. “Happy Saturday,” she called.

He responded in the same. She enthused, “It’s a gorgeous day.”

Both looked up at the blue sky and sun. Yes, he agreed, and told her that Alexa said it was foggy and to expect rain showers throughout the day.

She laughed. “That wouldn’t surprise me. It’s probably coming. I don’t care. I’m just enjoying this now.”

2

The Secret Magazines Dream

I was in my mid-forties. My wife and I had decided to clean out and organize a home office space. It seemed to be a semi-detached garage. The cinder-brick walls were pale yellow, a broken concrete and dirt floor was underfoot, and there were several large windows.

We’d lived in this place for a while, but several new people had moved in, and we were becoming acquainted with other neighbors. The office had a very large bathroom, also painted yellow, with a single naked bulb hanging down in the middle. I was in there with six neighbors, all men, with the door shut, discussing people we knew in common. One very tall man — I came up to his chest — said, “Hey, do you know Hylton?” I gleefully replied, “I know Hylton, really tall guy, right?”

I asked everyone if they would leave the bathroom, questioning why we were all in there. After that, I returned to the office. The office had a pale-yellow desk and matching file cabinets and printer stand. They could have been painted from the same can of paint as the walls. I began emptying all the drawers. I was hurrying because I’d hidden Playboy Magazines from my wife in some of the drawers. I didn’t want her to find them. After emptying the drawers, I frantically raced around, trying to find a new place to hide them. What to do! What to do! I could hear her talking in the other room.

She came in. I shoved the magazines into a box and shoved it under the desk. She said, “Oh, you’ve already emptied all the drawers. Good. Let’s go through everything and decide what to keep and throw away.”

I said, “I already did that. We just need to put things away. I can do that by myself. You can go do other things.”

But she disagreed, insistently she was staying there.

A man arrived in the garage next to the office. White, in his mid-forties, he had curly coal-black hair with a matching thick beard and was wearing a blue ball cap and matching overalls. I know this because I could see him over like a sort of divider. I asked, “Who are you?”

My wife said, “This is so and so. I hired him to help us clean and organize.”

I replied, “I have this handled. We don’t need any help.”

But she ignored me, going into the garage area with the man to talk about what he could do to help.

Okay, she was out the room. I resumed my attempt to hide my magazines. There were only four, so I thought it shouldn’t be hard. Then I thought, I haven’t looked at these in years, why do I want to keep them? I also questioned, why should I have to hide them from her? But I knew the reason was that she hated Playboy because of how it sexualized and objectified women.

I quit trying to hide them. My wife entered, saw the magazines, and threw a fit. I told her I was throwing them away, but she ranted about me having them and hiding them. Shrugging that off, I went outside to check on the cats. I had two young ones and wanted to ensure they were okay. I heard a dog barking. Looking over a hedge down into the neighbor’s yard, I saw a large German Shepherd running around. Well, I needed to keep the cats in, then!

I decided to cross the street to get my mail. The street was just a narrow dirt lane but my mailbox was on the other side. A middle-aged white woman was coming down the street on a blue bicycle. I waited for her to go by, but she just drew up and stopped right before reaching me. I was incredulous; she was blocking traffic, but seemed totally indifferent. After a moment, she shifted her bike to go to the mailboxes, the same ones where I was going. A large gray truck was waiting for her to go by, and several other people were waiting, too. But she just did what she wanted, oblivious to what was going on around her. Indignant, I crossed the street to the mailbox. As I reached the other side, she pedaled away.

Dream end.

2

The Tiny Horses Dream

We began with my wife and I in a car. I was driving. We were a young couple. Our car was a tiny but new silver import. As I went to turn right, I became aware of other cars racing up around me. Unable to see them, I just stopped the car as they went past, including a small, bright red car. Several turned right up the street that I was going to use. My wife and I talked and complained about the cars. I turned right and went up the hill into a modern housing plan. We immediately saw several wrecked cars, including the red car. As we commented that there was an accident, I realized that there were many more wrecked cars, and that there hadn’t been an accident; they had been attacked.

I stopped the car, but we stayed in it. I started to call the police on my cell phone but we heard sirens growing louder. Although we thought the police would want to question us, I was more worried about our safety and drove home.

We were in our house. It was a massive but beautiful, rambling place, with several levels. Airy, well-furnished, with many windows. Very clean.

One door led downstairs where we had several suites of rooms. These connected with other people’s places. We discovered a large, strange family had purchased one of the neighboring places. They were settling in. From their clothes and accents, it seemed like they were from a rural area and had just moved to the city. Talking to a female teenager, though, I learned that her mother just retired from the Navy and had moved there to take a new job.

Meanwhile, the new family was going into our rooms that were attached to their area. A few of them began moving some of their items in our rooms. I went upstairs and talked to my wife, confirming that those were our rooms. We then found a warning written in red marker on a brown paper bag on the floor: “I CAN FIND YOU.” The writing was terrible, but we were unnerved because it was in our house. I suspected that whoever did this came in through the downstairs part that connected to neighbors’ houses. I went down to try to make it secure so no one could get in that way. I realized that I couldn’t, and complained that this was one of the house’s shortcomings. I then told the new people that they couldn’t use those rooms because they were our rooms. They were confused and this entailed some extended conversations with different people, including the mother, before they understood. One aspect was emerged was the mother had pink skin and platinum blonde hair but two of her sons were very swarthy and hairy, and her daughters seemed Hispanic. There seemed to be about ten children running around. It was very confusing.

We got into our car to go somewhere. The car was a green golfcart. Rain started falling. I drove past railroad tracks. Glancing right, I thought I saw a tiny horse. I told my wife and then started trying to turn around to see it again. Reports came to us that a tiny horse had been spotted trapped on the railroad tracks. My wife urged me to go rescue it. Rain was pouring. Although I knew the tracks were no longer used, I agreed to rescue the horse, but thought I needed to get some tools first, so we went by our place.

When we arrived at the tracks, we discovered two tiny brown horses. Located on a sidetrack used for deliveries, these horses were smaller than cats. They weren’t trapped and didn’t need rescued. They were pretty lively, as evidenced by them starting to play with a white and calico cat that showed up.

The rain had ceased. We got out of our car to watch the two tiny horses as they played with the cat.

Dream end

SIDE NOTE: I’ve dreamed about this house, a sprawling place with a downstairs that connected to several other homes, multiple times before. It’s weirdly familiar.

5

The Distance

The distance didn’t seem that great,

just the width of the street.

But the space between hellos and good-byes

was more than could be breached.

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Neighbors

He was coming down the hill, and the other was going up. They were on the other side of the street from one another (social distancing, you know). As they came almost parallel, each slowed, nodded, and issued greetings.

The man going down said, “How do you like your new car?”

“My car?”

“Isn’t the white Tesla your car?”

“How’d you know?”

“I live across the street from you, down one.”

“Of course. I thought it was you. I like the car, thanks. It’s different, but we’re getting used to it. How’s your arm? Looked like you broke it?”

“I did. It’s healed, but I’m still recovering. Do you have a new cat? Gray, with mittens?”

“Yes. Her name is Nezza. She’s a rescue from the shelter.”

“She looks sweet.”

“She is. Well, have a nice walk.”

“You, too.”

As each went on their way, they thought, I should have asked him his name. They almost turned around to do so, but didn’t. Maybe on another day. After all, they’d been neighbors for a few years. What difference did a name really make?

5

Wednesday’s Whickering

  1. Writing was so intense today. Been seeing this rainstorm for this shithole where my characters arrived. It’s a bleak, rocky place, no green, no insects or birds. There are dogs and people (and rats). I wrote the scene today, shivering behind my laptop as I imagined the cold, hard rain slamming my people. Had to pause and pace, and get more coffee to warm myself several times.
  2. Love that intensity when it happens, but it’s also a distraction. Too much writing energy builds up. Fingers and mind can’t keep up with the story-telling stream gushing out. My abs get knotted and my arms tremble. Nobody ever mentioned this at the writing conferences.
  3. Wife made this wonderful pumpkin doughnut muffins yesterday. Rolled in sugar and cinnamon, they’re like doughnut holes. Man, those things are mega excellent. Each time I go for coffee, I want to eat another.
  4. When I pause in my writing, I spy on my neighbors. They’re up to something next door. Don’t know what. He’s like that, though, quiet, rarely seen for several months, then, boom, the sudden center of crazy, with cars and peeps arriving, and things being carried back and forth, and slamming and thumping noises. He’s a nice guy but when I hear this things, my mind paints him as someone nefarious doing some devious misdeeds. Being a nice guy is always a good cover for being an evil genius.
  5. The cats and I took well to the hour fall back. I much prefer it to the spring-ahead hour change. Really rather do without either, though.
  6. Watching The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. Really well done. The young lead actor, Anya Taylor Joy does an excellent job, but all are well-cast, and the production values are super. I’d not been aware of the novel. It came out in 1983, I read. After seeing the television show, I want to find the book and read it. It’s at my library, so I put it on my shelf. Didn’t want a hold. I’m already way behind my reading.
  7. Being behind on my reading is a constant thing. Reading stirs my writing. I enter this cycle of reading two paragraphs, write two sentences. Writing progress is made because this is in addition to my devoted writing period. Reading gets serious hampered. I’m eventually forced to focus on the reading and push to finish the book, which is a damn strange way to entertain myself, innit?
  8. I cut my hair yesterday. It’s the second pandemic cut that I’ve given myself. I think it looks good. Of course, I can’t see the back. I did what I could through feel. My wife is reluctant to cut it. I don’t know why. I have guesses but I’ll keep those shelved.
  9. Okay, got more coffee. (The pumpkin doughnut muffins were avoided.) Time to resume writing like crazy, at least one more time.
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A Double-Feature Dream

Two dreams stayed with me from last night. The first was short and simple. The second was like a movie.

My wife and I came outside in the first dream. I’d helped a neighbor with something. When we came out of the house, we saw that our landscaping was trimmed, cleaned up, and weeded. We guessed that the neighbor, who had their landscaping done professionally, had their landscaper come over and take are of our lawn as a gesture of thanks. After checking it out, we went back into the house, then came back out and saw that more landscaping had been done. It looked great, and we commented on that.

The dream ended.

The next one was like a movie. I didn’t appear to be in it. It was all about a race of  dark-skinned, golden-tone people. Slim and muscular, they were beautiful.

Living in the mountains, they struck me as amazingly civilized and cultured. While I was watching them, I was torn between whether this was on Earth or another planet, and whether the people I watched were humans or another species.

With a bright, hot sun burning down on us, I followed a man and woman. They seemed to be high-ranking officials, but not the ultimate rulers. Wearing a speedo and a bikini respectively, they were on some kind of cursory inspection, talking about what had been done and what needed to be done.

As they finished, they came to the top of a tall, narrow waterfall. People swam in a pool of water stories below this vantage. As they were watching, the woman stumbled. After saying, “Oh, shit,” she began plunging over the waterfall. While that was happening, the man said, “You’ll be okay, just turn it into a dive,” which the woman was already changing her body to do. As she arced down in a graceful dive, the man continued in a conversational tone, just remember to hit the water shallow, and then angle up to avoid the steps.”

I was following the woman’s dive and saw her slip into the water, then rise up over some stairs that were under the water (she stayed underwater ), and then continued gracefully swimming.

The man said, “Yes, there, you did it. I knew you could.”

The dream ended.

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