Sweet Dreams

Hubby and I were college students and we had a dorm room together. (So, now you know this is a dream, right? I really lived in an all-girls dorm and I didn't meet my husband until several years later).

The room itself was crowded with desks on opposite walls with a bed between them. Running head-to-foot was another bed that filled the floor space between the first bed and the door to the hallway, with dressers on either side.

I remember waking up and my first thoughts being about getting to the bathroom (which could have been on another floor) and getting the water to start my coffee. It was then I realized I didn’t have a coffee maker, but a french press and that I didn’t have a hot plate for my kettle.

Fortunately, hubby had a car and he offered to drive me to F&F to get one. On the way, we passed an apartment building and I remember thinking it must be nice to live in an apartment instead of having to live in the dorms. The building was was on a corner lot and was only two stories tall. It reminded me vaguely of Athens, Georgia. The building was set back from the street and had a small yard that surrounded it. There was a sidewalk and large shade trees on all sides.

I could see the kitchen inside was a massive room and featured a 18 burner stove which was really three six-burner gas stoves installed side by side. The kitchen appeared to take up a fourth of the square footage of the first floor. There was no furniture in the kitchen but it was large enough to put in long cafeteria style tables. I remember wondering if the arrangement was so that residents could share the kitchen, each cooking individual meals according to individual schedules, or if there was a cook who worked there and served them all.

As we took the corner, I could see the living quarters. It was a vast, two-story room divided into carrels, each with a bed and a desk. The carrels were all open to the center of the room which was a common space. Above each carrel was a loft that housed two drawers that each contained single beds. The beds could be pulled out for guests and had built-in recliners at the head of the bed so that guests could be propped up while reading in bed. It was communal apartment living. All the tenants appeared to be male and it reminded me more of a large cabin you might find in a large camp than an apartment building.

As we traveled on, we got to a more commercial area of town. I remember being grateful that hubby had a car because it allowed me to get off campus and see other parts of town I didn’t otherwise get to see. We approached an intersection and most of the buildings there were constructed of cinder blocks painted white. The street signs were lighted white signs with the street names written in blue script.

We took a street which was at an angle just beyond a 45 degree right turn, and started up a steep hill that quickly became residential. The rise became steeper and steeper until we were nearly vertical. The car hubby was driving was an inexpensive small boxy model of some sort and I was sure we would never make it up the hill. The conditions were dry but the dirt road was packed to a near shine from all the cars that had slipped down the hill before us. Still, hubby was confident and undeterred. He drove just off the right side of the road where he felt he could get better traction on the sparse grass that struggled to grown there.

Sure enough, we made it to the top of the slope where the street leveled out and then came to an end in the front yard of an old, red house. There were large evergreen trees surrounding the house which made everything seem dark and damp. We walked across the small yard to a raised wooden plank-style sidewalk that led to a covered breezeway which in turn lead to the front porch. The wooden planks were sturdy but the walkways were not. They seemed to shift and sink into the earth with every footstep making an unstable pathway.

I made it to the breezeway and hubby was right behind me. As I approached the open front door, I could just see through the dusty single-pane windows into the the front hallway. There, on the dusty and worn wooden floor I saw a large white dog on a long silver chain.

“Dog!” I shouted and we both leapt from the breezeway to the yard and ran back to the car along randomly placed paving stones. Before we reached the edge of the driveway, I dropped a tan mitten and I remember wondering if it was worth stopping for. I stopped and turned around to find a big, fluffy white cat sitting on a paving stone looking up at me with blue eyes rimmed in blue. Alongside was a medium sized white/tan dog with short curly hair (a labradoodle?) who wasn’t as scary as the dog I thought I saw inside the house.

And, that's it. That’s where the dream ends. Too bad there wasn't a better ending.