(2/7/10) stalked through a high voltage maze

(Entered in paper journal at 8:42 AM at Sit & Wonder cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was in some place like a hospital. I was getting ready to leave. I may have checked out with a woman at a desk on a second floor or mezzanine level.

An older, black woman came up to the desk, standing close to me, urgently, as if she were trying to snoop or spy on me. I turned away from the desk. The woman turned and walked close behind me.

I walked down a short staircase, then (turned left? and) walked down a large, tall, wide hallway. The hallway had grey carpet and clean, white walls with Southwestern decorations (possibly Native American rugs, animal skulls, wood, etc.). The hallway was lit with a gentle, greyish, fluorescent light and dimmed natural light (as if it came through tall, narrow, UV-coated windows). The place feels like a place I could have been to in New Mexico. There were a couple large desks on the right side of the hall, desks like schoolteachers might use, or which might be used in libraries to display papers and pamphlets.

I could still feel the woman following me. I was approaching some sliding glass doors at the end of the hallway. I couldn't be sure whether the woman was following me, but she was still right behind me. So I approached the door, walked through one set of sliding glass doors, then turned around and walked right back inside. The woman also turned around and walked back inside.

I walked about halfway down the hallway and then turned right, into a little alcove that led to another staircase. I approached a little concession stand which, I had remembered, was on the right side of the alcove. The woman now also approached the concession stand. I turned immediately and stepped away. The woman also stepped away.

I accused the woman of following me. The woman insisted she wasn't following me. She asked how I dared to accuse her of following me. She went back to the concession stand like she was going to buy something. While she was engaged, I walked quickly out of the building. Outside the building, I began running.

I was now in a suburban-style residential neighborhood. The sun was bright and gold, and the weather was warm. I knew I had to get somewhere. I knew the directions for getting there, even though I didn't know this neighborhood in general very well. But now I had to stray from my directions to keep the woman from following me to the right place. I ran down a few blocks, turning left here and there.

I ended up in the parking lot of some place like a church-school. I felt like I was in Italy now. I walked close up to the back of the school building -- dark-baked red bricks.

I looked around the corner of the right side of the building. I had planned to run off in this direction. But overhead I saw electric power lines. The lines were strung safely between wooden poles (it seems), but I was terribly afraid of the lines falling on me. There were four or five lines strung between the poles, black and silver against the deep blue sky.

I cowered from the wires, even at a distance, telling myself that in Italy the distribution wires were of a much higher voltage than the distribution wires in America. I felt like if I walked under the wires, they would certainly fall and kill me.

I might have been able to see the "hospital" in the distance, beyond the parking lot and field of the church-school building. I may have watched for a moment to see if the woman had emerged yet. I thought I would run in the opposite direction from what I'd planned. I would run away from the building, instead of up along its side, near the wires.

I turned and looked down a slight slope of parking lot edged with a kind of ragged field shaded with trees and with a little creek in it. But near the creek and trees I saw another set of electric wires. Some of these looked to be of even higher voltage. Some of them were thick and very silvery, almost chrome-like.

I was afraid to run in this direction, too, certain that the wires would snap and fall on me as soon as I was under them. I turned back toward the front of the building. But now the wires looked even more menacing -- thick, black, old looking, with heavy looking, clip-on-type mechanisms along them. They looked old, corroded, just waiting to snap and fall, and just filled with high voltage.

I felt like I needed to do something soon. Otherwise the woman would find me. But now the sky clouded over with dark, grey clouds. It may have started raining. I knew lightning would begin striking. I was certain these high voltage wires encompassing me would be likely targets. And if they were struck, the electricity would flow, even stronger, from them, and strike me.

I had to make a choice for how to get out of here very quickly. I now stood, in the pouring rain, at night, in the square between a number of different buildings made out of a porous, white stone. I knew this was the campus for an Italian university. I thought, I should sit in the library to wait out the storm. But I didn't know where the library was.

I ran into a complex of buildings, into a tunnel between two connecting buildings. I ran up a small ramp. The walls had gold-colored metal lettering on them, apparently indicating what building, department, etc., this was. But I couldn't tell what they were saying. There were some signs which I thought I might be able to understand. But these signs were missing some of their letters, so that none of the words were evident.

I ran back out to where I had come from. In the rainy distance I saw a group of young men, probably black, wearing different-colored, rain-proof hoodies. They looked mean. But I thought I would still ask them, in a conciliatory, non-threatening manner, where the library was. I was sure they'd tell me.

I was now in a big room, like a library. There were a lot of stacks, maybe eight feet tall, as well as information desks, reference desks, and study tables. But the place didn't feel cluttered or crowded. It felt full of space. The place was lit in greenish, fluorescent light. I saw a second floor balcony in the distance, with a barrier of waist-high, white-painted, vertical, iron bars topped with a horizontal, wooden beam.

I wandered around near a chest-high reference desk, looking for somebody who might tell me where the library was. I walked past a couple groups of people. I passed a couple black men, on my right side. They sat in leather chairs.

One of the men said, "Hey man, hey man. You want this? You want this, man?"

I thought the man was offering me drugs, so, without even looking at the man, I told him, "Nah, no thanks, man."

I now looked at the man. He was kind of round-looking, but strong. He was bald, and he wore a backwards, black baseball cap and a black sports jacket made of some shiny material. He looked at me with round, black eyes and held out his right (?) hand to me in a half-fist.

In the half-fist I saw what the man was offering me: something like medals. Between the man's fingers I saw a few round, dull-brass colored circles that almost looked like subway tokens. In the palm of the man's half fist I could see two distinct ribbons. One was red, white, and blue. The other was yellow and green. They were both short, stubby, and of a slightly thick material.

I realized the man had been offering me the medals. I felt bad for thinking he'd been offering me drugs. I now thought I might like to have the medals. But I walked pat the man, partly because I'd felt bad about thinking badly about him, partly because I didn't want to bother with the man, and partly because I felt like what was done was done.

I now walked up to a chest-high reference table. A group of people stood around the table. A group of Mexican guys had left a couple plates of cookies on the table. I had actually wanted to speak with the Mexican guys, but they'd left.

I stood around the plates of cookies with the rest of the people. The people were students, but they were around my age. I may have known some of them. I may have known some of them. I wanted to make a good impression on all of them, but I was sure I probably wouldn't.

I looked at the plates of cookies. The plates were red, either of thick plastic or thin, disposable plastic. The cookies were a think kind of material, like sugar cookies with the thinness of ginger snaps. The cookies were all coated with even layers of white frosting.

There were white line drawings on the frosting. The drawings were of Mayan (?) characters. Each cookie was a different Mayan character's face or bust. Some of the faces were wide; others, thin. Each cookie was shaped to match the shape of the character. One plate had white cookies. The other plate had brown cookies.

Everybody grabbed cookies. There was one cookie left for me. But it was one of the brown cookies. I had wanted one of the white cookies. I looked at the cookie. Depicted on it was a god with a long, narrow face, a pronounced nose, and a tall, narrow forehead. I put the cookie to my closed lips, as if I were going to enclose the tip of the cookie very softly with my lips.