Dream XVIII

I was invited to attend a meeting of some people who did some spying, but not very important spy stuff. A young lady invited me because she knew I wanted to publsh my stories, and one of their members was an editor.

I was called rather suddenly to one of their meetings, where various people showed up an apartment and made themselves at home. Because of the rush to get to the meeting, I hadn't brought any of my stories, but I reasoned that this was just an introduction and I wasn't worried.

There were several cats in attendance, including a small kitten who slept in a basket full of ice water. Another cat yowled and hissed until I vacated where I was sitting, which was his favorite spot. The cats were dark brown and yellow, and one was colored yellow from his head to the middle of his body, then dark colored out to his tail.

I learned some interesting things about their operation, but didn't get a chance to talk to the editor. I walked from one end of the apartment all the way to the other, which was a black painted corridor, just to see if I had met everyone. When I returned to the main part of the apartment, I noticed that several small paintings of mine were gathered together. No one seemed to know how they had gotten there.

There were several stylized paintings of everyday things, some murky green covered canvases, and some works with small bits of paper pasted on to them in collage. One painting showed a cartoonish picture of me driving a car through the city with my father sitting in the back seat.

The largest canvas was perhaps ten inches across; most were smaller, five inches square and such. I gathered the paintings in a paper shopping bag, the kind that has cords for handles.

The young lady and I prepared to leave, then. I had met the editor, but not in his capacity as such.

Another attractive young woman, who was the one who arranged contacts for the meetings, was asked how she would prepare the next symbol to announce the meeting--in this case, the symbol was "a big butt." She dropped her pants (she had a lengthy blouse) to illustrate. I asked her if she had had any formal art training, and noted my degree from Sewanee. I also said the canvases found here were not my best work (which they weren't.)

As the first young lady and I left, we noted how dark the sky had become. It was only 2:48 in the afternoon, but the light outside was like evening. This was due to a huge storm off in the distance, rapidly approaching.

Remembering that I had arrived empty-handed, I noted to the young lady that due to the suddeness of her call, I hadn't brought any of my stories with me. She apologized, saying she had called my cell phone but no one answered, and she had also tried other numbers in the same hunt group. I explained that I didn't carry that cell phone around much, but I had my work phone with me. I resolved to have my cell phone route to my work phone, but then reflected that this was probably a bad idea.

We agreed to meet later, and I went back to work. Everyone was looking out the window at the approaching storm, which in some cases was a huge column of black cloud, blotting out buildings as it moved nearer--somewhat like a hurricane in appearance but without the destructive power. I wanted to get a picture but had forgotten my camera at home. I was also going to go swimming and wait out the storm, but I had forgotten my trunks as well.

I began driving toward home, imagining in my head the radio announcer saying, "And the Manhattan Bridge is now completely impassable." I decided to go with a group of other people to an underground mall, and pass the time there waiting for the storm to abate. The mall was quite nice, with good lighting and a kind of old-fashioned atmosphere.

I went into a very nice-looking book store, where the decor was all wooden and old-library-like. There, I found a collection of Get Fuzzy cartoons.

In one, the dialogue went like this:
Bucky: See! He[referring to Sachel]'s one of the Om Island Men!
Sachel: Oh, Ti[referring to Bucky], I'm not!
Rob: Good Lordy!

In another, the action consisted solely of Bucky hitting Sachel on the head with a bat, and Sachel hitting Bucky on the knees with another bat.