(9/22/09) joy to see the woman dead; customer and co-worker

Dream #1

I was in a place like a stage version of an old, European city at night. There were a lot of people milling around here and there. There were a couple of buildings with their ligts on inside. In the center of the street was a tall, wooden staircase.

I had watched a rich man (and a rich woman?) do something awful to one of my friends. The rich man and woman were like bosses of a company for which all of us on this street worked.

For a moment I may have been in some large room or large field, virtually alone with the rich man, with a chance to tell him that I didn't like the way he'd treated my friend. But I was too afraid to tell the rich man how I felt. I feared he would hurt me somehow.

I was back in the street. I was climbing up the wooden staircase, which also had people milling about on it, like they were in a line for an amusement park ride. I might have seen or heard the rich man laughing, either on the staircase or in the distance on the street, exulting over the cruel act he had committed. The rich man may have looked like a well-groomed, slightly softened, version of the blind accordion player from Fellini's Amarcord.

I reached the top of the staircase. I now stood in a mezzanine or balcony in a very nice hotel or mansion. The place was well-lit and clean, with white walls and railings. People were crowded all throughout the floor and all the way down the stairs. I worked my way through the crowd, as if I were walking on a railing over all the people, and arrived at the head of the staircase (although, apparently, I had just come from the staircase).

I saw, in one corner or the balcony, the rich woman lying face-down, dead, on the floor, crowded around by a thick huddle of people. The woman was dressed in a beige or tan robe and an ivory-white head-covering, like a Muslim woman might wear.

I stood or knelt or perched on a corner of railing and began laughing. I felt such relief, almost joy, to see the woman dead. It felt like a payback for what the rich man and woman had done to my friend. My laugh was so loud and so obviously, defiantly happy that the packed, milling crowd, which had been mumblingly noisy before, now became completely silent and turned to stare at me.

I could tell that the rich man was somewhere near me in the crowd. I could tell he'd be angry with me. But I now called out, "She's dead, isn't she? But it looks just like a cartoon. I wonder if we flipped her around, if she'd have X's on her eyes!" I began laughing again.

Dream #2

I was at a testing center (which I had as a temporary job for a couple months in between my permanent jobs). I sat on a desk, and my boss, NJ, stood beside me. I had had some troubles with a customer, possibly technical issues, and I was now really upset. But NJ told me to get back to work. I had to stand up and sit back down at another desk.

The person who had been my customer now sat down beside me. He was a black boy, maybe ten years old, with light brown, smooth skin, a very thin frame, and a head of huge, frizzy hair. He wore a white t-shirt that was just a little too large. The boy was now my co-worker, not my customer.

I was a little worried, thinking how the boy had been so difficult before, as a customer, that he'd now be even more difficult as a co-worker. I pulled out something, possibly a black binder, and began shuffling through either white pages or photographs that were in plastic sleeves.

(9/29/09) summoned by a nazi

(Entered in paper journal at Sit & Wonder cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was in a corridor that ended in a room like a small greenroom or meeting room. The corridor was small, lit with flat, greenish, fluorescent light, with low, weak-feeling ceilings. The carpet was thin and light. The room was similar. It probably had a set of room-wide steps or tiers up to a small platform or stage at the back of the room. There were other people in the room.

I had been spraying (?) some white stuff like Silly String through the area, apparently to get rid of something evil. But now, having approached the platform (where everybody was milling around, as if getting ready for a usual day of business), I found, or just suddenly had in my hand, a tangle of brownish, jelly-like Silly String. I knew someone else had put this wherever I had found it, and that they had put it there to thwart my efforts with the white Silly String.

There was a woman, like my old writing coach GW, on the platform. I approached her and asked, as if she could control anybody who got out of hand, "Who did this? Who's trying to ruin my work?"

Now someone called from behind me. They said the boss was looking for me, and would I please bring my partner (?) with me? I saw my girlfriend H standing near me. I was about to bring her with me, but I brought a tall, black woman instead. The woman had dark, smoothly brown skin and long, flowing, crimp-curled hair. She may have been wearing a long, whitish, strapless dress.

We walked down the hallway and into a small office. My old friend R sat behind the desk. He wore a military-looking uniform and hat. The uniform was blue with green-trimmed, red strips on the shoulders. The hat looked like something a Nazi official might wear.

The office was just as small and flimsy as the corridor and room had been. It seemed cluttered with newspapers, bookshelves overflowing with books, which spilled over onto the carpet, and a couple of large, potted plants.

R told me and the woman to have a seat. There were two chairs, but only one was empty of clutter. I pulled that chair over to the inner side of the room for the woman. I then walked over to the other chair, which was near the door, and cleared the stacks of papers and newspapers off of it. I then picked up the chair to carry it over in front of R's desk.

As I did this, R asked whether I had gotten my building pass yet. I told him, "Not yet. But NJ" (an old boss of mine) "has set me up to go get it done."

R said, "Good." He snapped a book shut as if to stop that discussion and start the actual conversation.