a dream

Last night I dreamt that I went to a large, old theater to watch a film with a friend. The theater seemed to be in a former Communist country in Eastern Europe or the former Soviet Union. The lobby was grey concrete and glass, but the main hall was baroque, with bright red carpets, chandeliers, and freshly painted white moldings on the ceilings. There were only a few other people there, and they seemed to be Kazakhs. The film was in black and white. All the lights were on and it was bright. At one point I looked up in the balcony and saw Arvo Pärt playing the clarinet, and I took out my clarinet and played along. Next to Arvo Pärt was a woman. Then the film was over and we left the hall. When I entered the lobby, holding the clarinet, I realized that I didn't have the case. I didn't remember having the case, or even taking the clarinet out of it and putting it together, but I went to the hall to look for it, doubting it was there. In the back of the hall, on the bright red carpet, I saw two black wallets. They were both worn and one was very thick. I looked around to see if anyone was looking. No one was. I nervously picked up the wallets and put them in my backpack, which I didn't have before. I went to my seat to look for my clarinet case but couldn't find it. After I left the theater, at some point, I looked in the thick wallet and saw that it was full of many $50 and $100 bills. The bills were fresh and almost stuck to each other. Nervously, I took out a $50 and a $100 bill and threw it in the bag. Then I walked around thinking that I shouldn't take the money and also that I should take more. Outside, in front of the theater were buses waiting for us. We were on the campus of a school. It was a boarding school in New Hampshire called Exeter, the rival school of the boarding school I went to in real life. The buses were on the street at the top of a hill. I walked down the hill and wandered aimlessly. I ended up in the stairway of a modern building. The walls were very white, and there was a large window that looked out onto grassy landscape. There was a water fountain in the stairwell. I looked in the bag at the wallet and the money, not knowing whether I should put the bills back or I should take more. The bills I had taken were folded up small. I had crumpled them up in my hand nervously, but I don't remember when. Somehow, they ended up folded, not crumpled. I left the stairwell and saw an asian girl behind a counter in what looked like a student center. I considered giving the wallets to her, but didn't know whether to put back the money first or take more or just give them as they were. I went outside. Outside I noticed that the landscape was very beautiful. The grass and trees were a lush green. I wanted to get back to the buses but didn't know the way. The roads were very windy and hilly. I walked along one and ended up somewhere that seemed to be the athletic fields. Nearby looked like the buses, but they weren't. I was running as fast as I could but moving very slowly. I walked a different direction along another windy road downhill and suddenly saw that the campus was on a stone cliff. About 100 meters below, I could see waves from the sea crashing against the rocks. I thought that the campus was truly beautiful. I kept walking and, turning the corner, I reminded myself that Exeter wasn't on top of a stone cliff by the sea. When I got around the corner, as if to appease my thought, I saw, about only 50 meters below, a harbor with sailboats which looked like Boston. That seemed to make more sense, although Exeter isn't in Boston. But the harbor satisfied me anyway. I was getting further and further away from any buildings. I felt scared and lost. Then I saw a small back door of a building built into the side of a stone wall on the left side of the road. I went inside. It was a stairwell. I walked upstairs into more open space but then heard someone coming. I became afraid and went back downstairs towards the door. I stood still by the door. The person, who was a girl, an Exeter student with long, reddish, curly hair, came towards me. I became very afraid and wondered whether I should make myself invisible. I knew I could, if I tried hard enough. I tried and became invisible. I tried to remain perfectly still. The girl looked confused because she thought she had heard something. As she got closer to me, I became afraid that she would touch me, so I pushed her away. Surprisingly, she wasn't surprised at being pushed by something she couldn't see. There was more interaction with the girl, but I don't remember anymore exactly what it was. I awoke.

subway

NYC construction site

Beton

So as not to be alone Otto read a book that had been given to him by someone he lived with for two months in a foreign city, where Otto was now. The book was called Beton, and it was about a lonely old man who cannot bring himself to write the first sentence of a book he has been working on for years about Mendelsohn-Bartholdy. The man is a misanthrope and suffers from loneliness. The loneliness he suffers from is not the adolescent kind that is actually a longing for the company of others. It is an illness. The man suddenly dreams of traveling, the one thing he has real passion for, besides Mendelsohn-Bartholdy, he believes, but he is too ill, he says. Otto was surprised, with both pleasure and fear, at how similar he was to the lonely, ill misanthrope, and he felt less alone although he was not any less alone. Otto didn't understand why the book was called Beton, which in German means "concrete," but any book called Concrete Otto would have at least picked up at a bookstore to look through.

The Museum

So as not to be alone Otto went to the museum. He walked through the city in the snow. Walking over the empty fields leading to the main train station, he thought about the war. He thought about the war again walking through the main hall of the museum. The floor was grey stone and exactly level, which he found endlessly beautiful. The long wing attached to the main hall looked like it used to be a slaughter house. It smelled like a horse stall.

Mondays

So as not to be alone Otto went to the bar around the corner, the one that is actually around three corners, with the mauve walls. On Mondays there is a Belgian there cutting hair. The bartender is a woman called Eliot who is French but pronounces Eliot like in English. The last time Otto saw her she was growing her hair. The last time Otto saw her she was eating meat at the Spanish restaurant at the end of the block. Her lips were glistening from the fat. Actually, the walls aren't mauve but more like deep raspberry. That might also be wrong. In any case they aren't blue or green or black or yellow. It's probably not wrong that they are more like deep raspberry, even if they are not actually deep raspberry, if deep raspberry is even a color. It was Monday, and Otto washed his hair in case he decided to have it cut.

France

So as not to be alone Otto thought about the time he was in France. It was sunny, the food was good, and he was young. Being young, his body felt different. He didn't feel it as much as he does now. Sleep came without effort. Too many things came without effort. The things that came only with effort still come that way. Fortunately, Otto learned to enjoy effort, even if only because he had to. That's why Otto isn't in France anymore.