Dreamlife

  In this dream, William and I
are checking into a fleabag motel (not so unlike, come to think of it,
the “Grand” Marina we lodged in this summer) off a barren, nondescript
road. I leave my belongings in our room and head out. As I’m leaving,
the manager approaches me and tells me privately he has some misgivings
about William’s reasons for being there. I reassure him that William is
on the level and explain what his legitimate reasons are, although I no
longer remember them or the manager’s worry. Then I get into the jalopy
we’re traveling in and drive off.
  When I return, I notice
William has dumped a ragged suitcase of mine in a pile of rubbish in
the parking lot. Without looking inside, I somehow know that it
contains a cadaver we had with us in our ‘suite’. (I don’t recall whose
corpse it is or why on earth we have it. Synchronistically, I dreamt
this the night before going to see Claude Chabrol’s La Demoiselle d’honneur.)
I’m not sure what my motivation is but I pick up the suitcase and bring
it back indoors. Almost as soon as I enter, the manager begins banging
angrily on the door. I’m not sure what his grievance is–that we’re
keeping a corpse on the premises? I’m quite concerned however–not
about being arrested (which doesn’t cross my mind) but about being
evicted. As crummy and generic as this place looks, something must bind
me to it, since I feel such unease at the prospect of having to leave.

  In the dream, I find a book
of the Ice Queen’s (whether a book she authored or a book that belonged
to her, I don’t know) listed in a catalog. I consider mail ordering it
but worry that she will learn of it and… and what? At any rate, I
decide to go to the book dealer who’s listed it, wherever that is, and
purchase it (with cash, undoubtedly). The place I enter doesn’t look
exactly like a bookdealer. It could be a shop, a bar, a residence, with
spacious but nearly empty rooms with wooden paneling. But there is a
man behind a desk whom I ask for the IQ’s book. For reasons I don’t
recall, he is apprehensive about providing it and tells me I will have
to wait some time. I resign myself to this and wander off to one of the
rear rooms, which leads to another and another. I pass some rather
banal looking people in suits who are in the middle of a conversation.
I don’t intend to stop but another person, sitting to their side seems
familiar and this catches my attention. He recognises me before I
recognise him–it’s Dr. Joel R., my feckless high school philosophy
teacher. He greets me warmly (this is continuous with the previous
night’s dream, which I’ll have to transcribe since it looks like the
beginning of a trend) and fills me in on the banal details of his life:
he’s working somewhere in Europe and visiting somewhere far from
wherever we are now (so I can’t explain how I ended up bumping into
him).
  I don’t recall if I ever get the IQ’s book. Perhaps I awaken before I do.

  In the dream, it’s night
time and I’m sharing a room with Hector (perhaps during one of our
yearly pilgrimages, like the one we made last week in waking life).
Although we seem to have already retired for the night, I am up and
about, trying to assemble something in the darkness, kneeling or
squatting beside a wall. Without leaving his bed, Hector is calling out
suggestions. All in vain–whatever it is I’m trying to fashion keeps
falling apart in my hands. I give up and open the curtains of our
window. It doesn’t look out on an urban landscape. Rather, it seems to
be at the top of the sloping walls of a valley, from which packets of
light ascend into the air. “How high that highest candle lights the
darkness.” And then, someone we recognise in the dream emerges along
with the lights but I have no recollection of his identity or
significance.