House Party

I dream I’m at a party in a large house. The occasssion isn’t really clear, but it includes family, friends, and people of whom I’ve never seen. The house is dimly lit, as my dream dwellings usually are, and after chit chatting with my friend Gary on a sofa, I retreat into a dining room with a long table where I happen to walk up at just the right time to catch my grandfather who falls over. I help him get seated, and chat with him, my uncle, and my grandmother at the table for a while. There was laughter, but no particular feelings of any kind that I could recall…the only subject I do remember was their curiosity concerning my lack of interest in my high school yearbook, which for some reason or another had just then come into existance. Something about it frightened me when I saw it…it was as thick as a church bible, and I was only able to bring myself to peel the cover open and look at the first picture. Two people I have never actually seen before, yet recognized as people I knew but had long forgotten about in my dream, stood holding hands in a gray suit and purple dress. The girl reminded me of a cat, and the boy a puppy, and I quickly closed the book.

I go to look for my brother Keith and hear he’s outside swimming in the ocean by himself. Concerned, I leave the house and walk to the beach. The water is an obscenely dark blue, and the waves roll in inconsitant patterns. I can see my brother swimming a ways out, just past where the ocean floor becomes too deep to stand. I can’t reach him, however, because my dream motor skills make swimming impossible, and the unusually erratic and largely forboding swells keep pushing me over…elevating my concern for my brother’s well being, who for some reason is once again eight years old. I call out to him, hey! keithy!, and he laughs a response as he dissapears from sight.