Story: A Dream

I’m experimenting with writing dreams. Here is one I wrote the other day:

I was on the train one morning, when the man sitting next to me began telling me about his dream.

He was walking through the city at night, under a big overpass bridge. Under the bridge was a group of homeless people, dressed in all sorts of crazy outfits and gathered around a metal trashcan fire. He started walking faster to avoid them, but then one of the homeless people, an old man, was walking next to him. They started talking, like it was the most natural thing in the world, all about music and books. He was saying all sorts of stuff about the importance of reading being overrated by the chauvinistic media and that view being accepted by the angry mob. It seemed perfectly reasonable to the man on the train and he invited him to his house for tea as payment for his enlightening conversation. They ended up at the White House, because for some reason the man on the train lived there. There was a big state dinner going on and all the people there were wearing tuxedos  including the women, because that was more qualitative. When the two men walked in, the dreamer could tell that everyone was wondering why he had brought along such a disintegrated old man along to a fancy dinner, but the man on the train said, “It’s OK, everyone, I invited him for tea.” At that everyone immediately began applauding and giving each other expressive looks to show how excited they were to hear from such a prominent speaker.

The speech began well enough, but turned into the homeless man presenting his dissertation exploring the similarities between soap operas and the Bible. A woman sitting next to the man on the train leaned over to him and said, “You forgot to tell him this was a government dinner, didn’t you? Not a rational one?” At that moment the after-dinner entertainment of a traveling circus streamed into the room through the big double doors. Jugglers on unicycles were followed by dancing bears, who were followed by a group of clowns in a little clown car. Through the chaos the speaker continued, merely raising his voice a little to be heard over the noise. Then the man on the train remembered that he had forgotten to go to the grocery store on the way home. “I’m sorry, everyone! You’re all going to have to leave; I just realized that I forgot to buy tea this afternoon. Please forgive the inconvenience. We’ll try again another day.” And then he woke up.

I sat and listened to the dream, laughing at all the right places, but not really sure why the man felt compelled to share it with me. When I got to my stop I politely thanked him and stepped off the train. I stopped and watched the dancing bear drink tea on the platform for a moment before leaving, and as I crossed the street everything got hazy and I woke up.