A dream

I have to stay up a while longer because I just took my tick bite antibiotic, so I'll tell you about a dream I had last night.

First, I dreamt that I was watching someone remodel an apartment in an old inner-city eightplex, ie, one of those buildings where the entrances to the apartments are off a central corridor, four on the ground floor and four upstairs. There wasn't much to that dream.

But later, I dreamt I went back to that same apartment, only I was some sort of mystery man in a slouch hat and cape or coat, sort of like The Shadow or The Spirit. I had a female partner. We were on our way to one of the apartments to carry out a secret mission by dark of night.

We got out of the car and on the way to the apartment, I reached up and felt my face to make sure I had my mystery man mask on. But I couldn't feel it on my face. Did I forget it? Too late, I decided — I would just have to go without it.

We stealthily let ourselves into the apartment. My mystery woman partner was going to search for the McGuffin while I served as lookout.

Almost immediately, a dog and a cat came trotting toward us. They were friendly, though, and went right past us out into the corridor. There was a large ornamental basket of dried flowers in the corridor, and the dog stopped and peed on it as he left.

My mystery woman partner was searching the apartment while I had a quick look around. There were three people asleep in the bedroom. Two were in the bed and the third on the floor. We had already awakened them and they were trying to focus their eyes and look at me.

What was I supposed to do? I pointed my index finger at one of them, drew a small circle clockwise in the air, then jabbed my finger at him. His eyes closed and he fell back asleep.

Well, good! I had some sort of superpower or something. I drew another circle and jabbed my finger at the woman in bed next to him, and she fell back asleep. Once more for the woman on the floor beside them, and all three were once again unconscious.

I had a further look around. I strolled out of the apartment back into the central corridor. I looked through the open front door of a neighboring apartment and saw two scotsmen, dressed in kilts, asleep on the sofa.

I was beginning to get bored and restless. 'If this was a movie script,' I thought to myself, 'this scene would have already gone on too long by half.'

And then I woke up.