What Dreams May Come, Volume IV

To sleep, perchance to dream. We all dream, probably every single night. How often do we actually remember our dreams, though? Frequently when you awaken the dream vanishes like a puff of smoke. Sometimes a dream will stick in the memory for a few minutes or hours, but doesn't last the day. And then there are other times, when for whatever reason, a dream is as vivid and as memorable as if you actually lived it. Personally, I find I might remember more so if the dream is particularly outlandish. The other night I had such a dream.

When it began it didn't seem like it was going to be a bizarre dream. The first thing I remember is heading out to the Superstore with my wife to get a few things before it closed for the evening. We must not have planned this very well, because even though it was winter, I was wearing sandals, the slip-off kind. I guess we left the kids at home, because they were not along for the ride. Like I said, not well planned. Although we live just a couple of kilometers from the store, it took a while to get there, long enough that we figured the store would probably be closed before we arrived. Apparently that wasn't a concern, because we parked at the other end of the mall and walked down.

It was also a long enough ride that at some point during the drive I had taken off my sandals, because I had to put them back on before getting out of the car. I also took off my jacket, despite it being winter. And even though I took off the jacket while I was still in the car, and left the jacket in the car, I managed to leave my car keys in the pocket. At least, that's what I assumed happened to the keys, because they vanished, and in a dream, that made perfect sense. It didn't really trouble me or my wife much though, as we continued down through the mall to the Superstore.

In the real world, the Superstore is not attached to the mall, but is rather a hundred meters or so away, but in my dream, it was indeed connected by a fairly small door. The door had one of those drop down gates, which they lowered as we approached. But we weren't concerned. Instead of buying groceries, we started dancing. Ballroom dancing, to be precise. Right in the middle of the mall, with various people milling about. We didn't care, we danced. I guess they were playing a waltz or something over the mall PA system. And while I'm a rather hopeless dancer in real life, in my dream, I was actually pretty good.

I'm not sure how well you can dance in slip-on sandals, though, which is what I had been wearing. 'Had been' is the operative term, since what I was wearing seemed to be in a state of flux. At one point, I seemed to be wearing nothing but my boxers, which was only a problem because I was cold. So I wrapped myself in the knitted blanket from the couch at home. That's right, even though I had lost my keys, shirt, and pants, and left my jacket in the car, I suddenly had a large brown afghan with me. I wrapped it around my shoulders, and found it to be nicely warm.

If you're wondering, that happened sometime after the dancing, but before going back to the car, which was parked on the other side of the lot from where we had left it. I guess at some point in there we got the keys back, or we just didn't need them anymore. And also before leaving we offered a ride to a boy whom my wife knew, he had apparently been left at the mall. Well, maybe not left, per se, but rather he had been either abandoned or sold by gypsies. That's right, gypsies. Human trafficking gypsies at the Charlottetown Mall. I'm just going to let that sink in for a moment before I continue.

But no matter how he had gotten there, we figured, that instead of calling Child Services or the police, we could drive the unfortunate fellow home. If only we knew where he lived. We had an idea it was on the Brackley Point Road, but that's about it. And how do you find out where someone lives? We didn't ask him, that would have been too simple. Instead, we asked for his father's full name, and went looking for someone with a phonebook. We stopped at the office for a construction company that doesn't exist in the real world, and asked to borrow their phonebook. It didn't prove terribly useful, because the phonebook was a two page pamphlet, and didn't actually list any names.

And, unfortunately, this is where the dream ends. We figured we needed to find an actual phonebook, but I woke up before we actually did. It's a pity really, because thinking back now, I still want to know what was the story on those gypsies.