The Land of Nod, Pt. 1
So I'm sitting in this room, right, like a hotel room, with a double bed and two nightstands. The room is septagonal in shape, with wall segments of irregular length lending it a strange asymmetrical eerieness. On the wall opposite the bed are two elevators with shining chrome doors and frames; they look like the elevators you'd see at the Sears Tower or the Waldorf Astoria. "Fancy NY Elevayters," as I perhaps once heard a cowboy say.
I'm sort of milling around the room when I suddenly remember that - holy fuck - the baby's here and I forgot about it! Running to the other side of the bed, I find a baby wrapped in light blue linens, not crying, not smiling, just kinda lying there looking at the ceiling. I feel an intense wave of love and caring for this child, intermingled with guilt for having forgotten it there; after picking it up, I walk around the room for a little while, rocking it and cooing to it. It's unclear whether the baby's mine, but there is an intensity to my affection for it that suggests some form of connection.
Suddenly there are two other people in the room, a young couple dressed in black. As I turn around to face them, standing by the bed, there is an awkward moment; obviously we've both ordered the same room or something, and either they or I will have to leave. My awkwardness is compounded when I realize I'm no longer holding the baby, and that it is, in fact, back on the floor by one of the nightstands. Sheepishly I go back to where the baby is, pick it up and make my way to the elevators. Without using words, the couple and I seem to have decided that the room is theirs.
I enter the left elevator with the now-sleeping baby in my arms, pushing the top button (I forget the number) as the chrome doors close behind me. It goes up, then stops, goes back down, stops, then goes back up. No matter which floor I push, the doors won't open. I look down at the child. Its eyes are open and it's looking at me.
"I am the child who dreams the world," it says, and then I wake up.
And I didn't even do any drugs last night.
I'm sort of milling around the room when I suddenly remember that - holy fuck - the baby's here and I forgot about it! Running to the other side of the bed, I find a baby wrapped in light blue linens, not crying, not smiling, just kinda lying there looking at the ceiling. I feel an intense wave of love and caring for this child, intermingled with guilt for having forgotten it there; after picking it up, I walk around the room for a little while, rocking it and cooing to it. It's unclear whether the baby's mine, but there is an intensity to my affection for it that suggests some form of connection.
Suddenly there are two other people in the room, a young couple dressed in black. As I turn around to face them, standing by the bed, there is an awkward moment; obviously we've both ordered the same room or something, and either they or I will have to leave. My awkwardness is compounded when I realize I'm no longer holding the baby, and that it is, in fact, back on the floor by one of the nightstands. Sheepishly I go back to where the baby is, pick it up and make my way to the elevators. Without using words, the couple and I seem to have decided that the room is theirs.
I enter the left elevator with the now-sleeping baby in my arms, pushing the top button (I forget the number) as the chrome doors close behind me. It goes up, then stops, goes back down, stops, then goes back up. No matter which floor I push, the doors won't open. I look down at the child. Its eyes are open and it's looking at me.
"I am the child who dreams the world," it says, and then I wake up.
And I didn't even do any drugs last night.
posted by fnoonf at 10:26
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