In My Dreams I Am Everywhere. In Wakefulness I Am Absent.

The first thing I remember is the restaurant. It was my first day as a waitress. I kept repeating to myself, “Hi, I’m Rebecca. I’ll be your server today. Can I start you off with an appetizer?” I should point out that I have never been a waitress and I hate saying my own name out loud. I always stumble over it. I kept repeating that bit in my head.

I was assigned the outdoor section of the restaurant. My parents had showed up, probably as curious spectators. I patted my dad on the back as I walked by their table. The outdoor dining area was all grassy, almost like it had been a soccer field at one point, surrounded by a steep, grassy hill on two sides. The hill was reminiscent of something you would spread your blanket on at an outdoor summer concert…

As I continued my walk along the grassy field, I abandoned my restaurant job and found myself amidst a crowd of people, possibly concert-goers. I was trying to walk up the hill by way of the earthen steps that had appeared out of nowhere, but a little girl got in front of me, blocking my progress. She had funny hair. The ends were a brassy red as was the very top of her head. But in between, the hair was silver. It looked like a bad dye job. She was having trouble climbing the steps, so I grabbed her hands and pulled her along. She kept her hands wrapped around each of my index fingers. She weighed considerably less than a cloud, and I lifted her into the air and set her down upon each new step.

Her grandmother was nearby. She looked like La Befana, hunched over, with a big, crooked nose and bulging, paranoid eyes. She was wearing a scarf on her head and kept reciting cities in the Balkan Peninsula. At least, that’s what I assumed because she mentioned Serbia a number of times. Conveniently, a map appeared at my feet with what looked like the corresponding area on it. I couldn’t understand the old woman’s language; it resembled Portuguese, though, with all its “sh’s”. As I continued to help the little girl up the steps, I made sure she paid attention to the map so she could keep up with her grandmother’s lecturing.

At the top of the stairs, we found ourselves in a hallway. It could have been any hallway anywhere, what with its cream-colored walls and nondescript doors leading off the main hall, but there was something ominous about it. The next thing I noticed was the presence of the little girl’s brothers and father. Except, maybe it wasn’t the little girl because she and her grandmother were nowhere to be found. I recognized the father. He works in the library where I do, in a different department. He wears those big plastic glasses my own father did in the ‘80s. He reminds me of someone my grandfather would have taught with.

But in my dream, he was younger, wearing fatigues and those same clunky glasses. He looks panicked, terrified really, a look you don’t see very often. Really, that look was haunting, alarming. Paranoid, frantic, like someone who knows he’s at the end.

The grandmother was there again. She was talking about revolutionaries, saying they were Bolsheviks. I have no idea, just some more talk of Serbia and Bolsheviks.

I touched the father’s elbow and fervently asked what was going on; where were they going? He wouldn’t tell me at first, but then he said they would probably go back to California…

That’s where I woke up. I could hear my roommate in the kitchen dumping pots of water into the coffee maker. I have no idea what she was doing. I looked at the time—3:05. Irritated, I again found myself wishing I could live alone. I finally fell back asleep and proceeded to dream of a Valentine’s Day banquet of tables laden with Oreos and sugar cookies iced with the Toyota logo…