Dreams

1

I felt nervous walking through the crowded marquees. They all ate choice cuts on paper plates.

I thought I could recognize one of them. The one with the trimmed blonde hair... I felt my gut twist at thought of being noticed. I examine their fingers and see saucy stains. It was a white-collar affair, so I was worried about their shirts getting stained.

It was uncomfortable passing through the throngs of silk and smear. Visions of careless handling of the paper plates recurred, at each revolution, the plates would torpefy more. I came to see smears of meat on their shirts as the day went on.

Everyone showed their white teeth. Love was all around this midday.

The marquees became more scattered as we came closer to the house. At this point I was not sure if I was alone or in the company of good friends.

We(?) were not sure when work started on the exterior of the house, but it felt as though it had recently started, then all the builders took an extended vacation. We could understand this but were still upset by the flash feast a few yards down the street.

The entrance was impenetrable as white tarp draped over the house front. To the left was an impromptu trench, which was also the only means of granting us access. We each gave a separate prayer to the vacant builders elsewhere. Would they have had anything to do with building those high-end marquees?

We really wanted to be a part of that house, so we braved the fresh mud and imbalance that at times caused us to topple and stain our hands. It took us more time than it should, not because of the difficulty of the trench, but the length of it alongside the protracting house wall. We have never had to traverse the exterior of the house this way, so we never realized how long it actually was.

I think we went too far and found ourselves approaching a different building entirely.

We followed the trench to the opening of a small yard, defined from the rest of the environment by a green wooden fence. The boxed shape of the building felt uncanny like we had been here before, yet I was worried we should not be here at all.

There seemed to be work going on as well. It was also unfinished, perhaps the same builders started work here.

I'm not sure which one of us made the decision to enter, but we seemed to move as one entity from a narrow tail to the confined yard.

As we opened the door, Denise was there – just Denise and nothing else. I wanted to know why, but finding her here was clarifying. Just like when you learn a more nuanced definition of a word and eventually understand its role in a given poem or similar piece.