Writing About Dreams

This is a new thing for me, and I think it’s brave of me to share such personal details with you (what was I thinking?).

The first part of the dream that I can remember, I was waking up. I sat up, in the dream, on a lawn surrounded by thousands of people just milling around, like it was a massive summer vacation and we had all congregated in this particular location for the sole purpose of being lazy and talking to each other. The grass was unusually green and the sky, well, the sky was very blue, with some lovely fluffy clouds in aesthetically-optimal locations.

I got up and ran. I knew that a lot had happened up to that point but it was a dream and it didn’t really matter. What did matter was that I was late for something.

I stopped running when I saw a large, grubby man with unkempt hair standing by a mop bucket and a broom. He had the janitor jumpsuit on, but there was grease on his face. I think I was confusing a janitor for a mechanic. He hands me a key, and we talk. I remember thinking that I was so small and breakable-looking next to this man, but that that was only because I was still very young. I got my own jumpsuit.

My job, as well as I can remember, was to take care of this key. There was only one for all of the jumpsuit people, and I couldn’t lose it. It unlocked every window at the university, and also all of the sheds and any utility closet I could find. I started smoking in the hallways at school. I liked impressing my friends by whipping out the key and unlocking things, and also the way I could push the windows up with just a flick of my wrist.

I started finding things in the closets. Pieces of things, puzzle pieces. I would collect them and take them all back to the same closet (my favorite closet) and throw them in there on top of a bucket.

There were lots of jumpsuit men, but my favorite was the one that hired me. One day all of us jumpsuiters had to go on this retreat, to a farm on the outskirts of the university. There were fireworks, and someone was talking to us from above. We were all listening, but I couldn’t understand the language so I started spying on what the people around me were doing in the dark. Later a dozen or so of us went back to jumpsuit man’s house. His lover, another jumpsuit man, was there in bed with a woman. Her name was Lisa. I know this because every time the lover spoke, the words spelled themselves out in the sky in black cursive font, even his moans and sighs. But mostly he just said “Lisa”.

I remember that the jumpsuit man saw this coming, or rather, that he knew somehow that it was eventually going to happen. That was the way it was with jumpsuit man; everyone had their job and they couldn’t escape it. It would all play itself out one way or another. He was still sad, though, but he didn’t want to talk about it.

He told me he misplaced something. I showed him the collection of puzzle pieces in my closet. I remember his eyes were glowing, and again I didn’t understand anything except that it was big, and even though I didn’t know what was going on I had done something well. He was happy. He let me keep the key.

There were people everywhere. Sometimes I felt like we – the jumpsuiters – were the only ones that knew we had jobs. Every time I stepped outside, I had to wade through masses of people. It took a long time to get anywhere.

I was really happy to be wearing a jumpsuit, even though I had to clean up after everyone and make sure the mowers were running properly and that there were the right number of mops in each closet. I had to do this so other people could do their jobs. I was the janitor’s janitor.

At one point we all went to steakhouse, like the ones you find in Texas where the word “Texas” is written all over it because in Texas they’re really proud that they live in Texas. It was big and long and one big room and they served baked potatoes and steak and we watched a show in the center of the room. I was always watching things. I don’t remember talking much in the dream, except to tell people where they could find things.

The end of the dream was fuzzy. There was no drama and no resolution; life just went spinning on as it always does. The jumpsuit man found another lover. I found more puzzle pieces, and kept putting them in the closet. At one point, I saw a gigantic mower that stood several stories tall. It was an apt shrine, I remember thinking.

Then I woke up, and I had a headache from last night’s wine.