I awoke to the sound of Shaunee talking about how we first met. I couldn’t see her; I was turned away from her with my head wrapped under a sheet and I think I still had my eyes closed; but I could tell it was her from the voice. I was lying on my side and she was lying behind me with her arms wrapped around me. We weren’t in any kind of romantic or sexual relationship, but it did turn me on the way she was hugging me with her mouth so close to my ear.
“I remember when I first met you,” she said before going on to explain that it was in the first grade, meaning the first level of elementary school after kindergarten, but I can’t remember what else she said. It seemed to be about being in a play or something. I don’t know, but I was fascinated. I cherish old school memories, enjoy being reminded of ones I forgot about and even intervened to tell her that, though I didn’t actually remember anything she said happened.
I don’t know if I went back to sleep or what, but when I eventually got out of bed, Shaunee was gone and there was a gay guy in the room or a skinny black guy whose mannerisms fit the gay guy stereotype to a tee. He even did the fake voice thing as he told me something about ordering pizza; he might’ve asked me if I wanted some; but I was too distracted by my repulsion as I considered the possibility that it was him, not Shaunee, who’d embraced me earlier.
Just then a white guy who seemed to have brown curly hair walked into the room. I can’t remember what he said to me, but it seemed he’d gotten upset with me not long before and was trying to explain why. I didn’t want to be bothered, but I listened as he talked, perhaps seeking an unlikely apology, even as we walked from that room to an area separated by what looked like a glass wall or partition with tables and more college-age people on the other side.
I was apparently a college student living in some kind of dorm. The room on the other side of the glass must’ve been some kind of eating or study area, though most of the students I saw were just standing around, conversing with one another and probably on their phones. I observed all of this in a matter of seconds as the guy continued to talk to me when, all of a sudden, I saw what looked like an enormous insect crawling from underneath one of the tables.
I don’t know if it was a roach, a cricket or what, but it was at least a foot long and seemed to be injured; perhaps someone had inadvertently stepped on it; as it crawled toward the room I’d awaken in where the partition stopped. That meant all it had to do was crawl around it to get to where I was, but the dream didn’t last that long. The last thing I remember is interrupting the guy. “Okay, but all I want to know is… what that is,” I think I said as I pointed at it.
2020 ( November 05 )