To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

I had that dream again. The dream where I'm lost...trying to find my way around an unfamiliar, stark, and cold office building. The building is massive, with beautiful marble walls, polished concrete floors, and giant elevators made of polished brass. It's beautiful, but very cold.

People are coming and going, all as cold and faceless as the building in which they rush about. I think "What floor do I work on again?" and start taking random elevator rides, hoping the one I'm in will just be smart enough to remember which floor I work on. But of course, it doesn't.

The Elevator to Nowhere

So I get off on each floor and walk around, past office after office buzzing with activity. No one speaks to each other, there's just the hum of printers and meaningless conversations into telephones that never stop ringing. As I walk down long halls paneled with shiny dark mahogany, my fingers unconsciously trace a path so I can remember which way I came. Not unlike Gretel leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, I think. But one of the worker bees looks up from his printout, his headset buzzing, his mouth set in a stern manner that says "Don't touch the paneling."

◊This article was written by cosette and published at hubpages.com. If you are not reading this article at hubpages.com, it is a stolen article.◊

 So I walk on, hands assuming the proper position. Ah, there's a door! So I open the door onto a dark landing with a bunch of stairs descending to IdontKnowWhere, and just start walking downstairs, deciding not to return to this horrible place. Down and down I go with no end in sight. Finally, I come to a rickety part of the stairs, which have somehow morphed from solid concrete to twisted metal ladders, with a huge gap separating me from the only exit. I debate whether I should go all the way back up, or attempt to cross the gap and risk falling. I am just about to go back the way I came when I think "Ooh, what if I get all the way back up and the door is locked?" So, remembering all my play on the monkeybars as a child, I grab onto the ladder and swing across, barely making it. Finally, I am outside of the building. Now to find my car.

By this time, it is getting dark, and the parking garage is full of cars, bumper-to-bumper, all jostling for position for the drive home. A sea of dark silhouettes and amber lights streaming through a parking garage that suddenly resembles the overpass by my house. I wonder how am I ever going to find my little car in this mess.

So I walk and walk and walk, the parking garage becoming city streets in the same hues of black and amber and I think surely I have passed it. And then I see my car off in the distance, its little blue self waiting there patiently a good ten miles away, past yonder hill. When I finally get to my car, it won't start.

I hate that dream.

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