General background for this dream didn’t particularly coalesce. I was somewhere with others, inside a building, busy on a project. It seemed to be about indexing things, but I’m not sure.

This man (vague and indescript in the dream, except he was white), came along and demand to know what I was doing. Without allowing time for me to answer, he told me to get busy, then told me he wanted me to write an ad for him. Annoyed, I attempted protesting and explaining that I was working on something, but he was pushy as hell. He was also the boss and very successful, so I allowed latitude for that.

Settling down, I started to work on the ad for him. For this purpose, I picked up a pad and started writing in red ink.

Red ink wouldn’t do. He shouted at me, “Who told you to use red ink?”

Pissed, I replied, “No one specified any ink, and you didn’t say not to use red. What color will work, then? Blue? Black? Purple?”

He shoved a narrow notepad at me and a black pen. “Use this.”

I moved away from him to find a new place to write, settling on my knees at a low table, but he followed, trying to peer over my shoulder and see what I wrote. The pad he’d given me was full of writing. The pages were lined and everything was handwritten. I flipped through pages, looking for white space, while complaining to him that he’d given me a full tablet.

I finally found clean pages and started writing, but he hectored me. “What are you doing? What are you writing?”

I began explaining, “I’m writing an ad for you,” but he interrupted. “I want you to write me an ad for a person who needs help for a four-year-old.”

“What kind of help?”

“Doesn’t matter. Just get their attention.”

I kept starting to write, then he’d interrupt me. I’d move, find another page to write on, and begin again, and he’d interrupt me. I don’t know how many times it happened but I reached the point where I was ready to tell him, “Fuck off,” and leave it all behind.

But the dream ended. He was such an annoying asshole.