George in the Abstract: Two Dreams
Dream 1
New Year’s Eve. I’m at the top of a black-and-glass office building, all reflections and no intrigue, in an anonymous city. I’m with “a friend” whose face I never see and whose identity doesn’t concern me. George has already been born — he’s with my mom (his grandmom) in another building, safe.
Suddenly I become aware that the world isn’t stable, and something disastrous has just happened. The city reacts by sending emergency workers. They have to turn the entire building around, some number of times, while we’re in it. The turning upsets people. We wait through five or six full rotations, which go quickly, until I can’t stand it anymore. I have to go find George.
I parkour my way down the building, something like 15 stories, reaching pavement in a flash. My mom is in the next building over, a building with something of a stately Edwardian feel, and it’s then I come to the knowledge that it’s a hotel.
I burst through a maze of hallways on the first floor, wallpaper in mauve between elaborate mouldings, coming to several false stops when I open doors that lead to cleaning closets and bathrooms. Along the way, I realize I am pregnant with my second child.
I finally reach the room where my mom and some other relative are sitting on a red plush Louis XIV chaise longe, breathless and full of inner reckoning and deliberation regarding the sudden “remembering” of this second pregnancy, and come to look at my mom. She is bouncing a little baby girl on her lap.
Dream 2
[Background: George has been kicking me quite often in the exact same spot, a chunk of lung and other meaty stuff which I've taken to calling my "squeedlyspooch". The morning this dream ran, he'd kicked me at least 30 or 40 times in that spot, turning a dull "ow" into a sharp "ouch!!"]
“Our” bathroom, but a random bathroom. The layout puts the porcelain sink in front of but perpendicular to the large white wooden door, which when it swings open, hits the
I’m brushing my teeth when I hear boisterous footsteps followed quickly by the sight of Josh in a monster mask (or perhaps makeup), looking incredibly goofy. He is obviously intent on terrorizing me in a goofy way.
Josh opens the door into the bathroom with this goofy monster look on his face, and I stop and grimace in anticipation of the door hitting my head. The door indeed hits my head — HARD — and I yelp “owwwww!” with more than a little drama to emphasize the point.
[I wake up. Josh runs to the bed from the other room, having heard my audible yelp. I have to explain to him, I'm fine, I've just sustained yet another wicked kick in the squeedlyspooch from YOUR SON.]
