Dream 10: The Trap

7/31/10

Walking past Finlay Hall, I notice a student (somebody who in the waking world just looks like a wise-ass, although I do not know him personally) brandishing some long tire-iron / wrench tool, revealing to his friend in confidence that he will be removing the front door off Finlay this evening, as a prank. Not really troubled by this stunt, I made no move to thwart his plans; I was just curious as to how the campus -- staff as well as students -- would react to seeing the vandalism. In retrospect, if something like this had really happened, everyone would just be really confused, because it would just look like a door had been removed with a purpose, but nobody would be accountable for it. Anyway, the kid was compromising the security of the building, and that should have alarmed me, because no one ought to have to live in fear of foreign threats, especially in a gated community. But I learned this lesson through karma.

When I later returned to campus, I was about to enter my dorm room…in Finlay…when my door was no longer there. OKAY, NOW I CARE. Shit. So, being the target of a crime is the only thing that could make me feel morally aware? Well... I had to get on with securing my stuff, because now an invisible clock was ticking, counting down to whenever that kid planned to invade my room and disturb the peace. First thing I did was find a screwing tool, affix hinges to my thick, salmon-colored sleeping bag, and fasten the sleeping bag into a makeshift door. It shouldn’t work, but it did; the bag was flush with the frame of the door, assuming a solid rectangular shape despite gravity and other natural laws…whatever.

I then called my friend Kendall, briefed him about my missing door, and told him to keep watch for the evening; I must have had plans or obligations to be elsewhere. Nevertheless, I wanted to catch the criminal in action, or at least have him caught by someone. The trap was set.

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In a later dream, I promise myself to some girl, and later break her heart and make her cry because Yelena enters my dream and I choose to pursue her instead. Yelena, in this world at least, was the “one who got away,” whom no one could replace or be substitute for, and whom deserved to be pursued to the end of the world.

We are in her kitchen in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, preparing dinner together in the warm company of her family. I just enjoy washing dishes, quietly, by her side.