been watching a movie in the basement. I can’t remember what we were watching, but I know it didn’t contribute to the vile content of the dream. I was lying on a blow-up mattress a foot or two from the couch where my father rested. It wasn’t quite full with air, so I sank into it almost down to the floor. My father was already asleep and snoring fitfully. That, combined with the persistent murmur of the film, made it difficult to fall asleep. After an hour or so I finally drifted off, and when I did I found myself standing outside of a school. It was much larger than any school I’d ever seen, but when I wandered inside I recognized the linoleum floors and white protruding brick of the middle school I had once attended. Then I noticed that I was there with several people, some of whom I knew. I glanced with disinterest at the foreign faces before focusing on those I recognized. They were friends of mine, but their features had been altered in subtle ways. Some were paler than they were in reality, others had different hairstyles or different eye color. We were playing a game of hide and seek, and the person who was to be the seeker (he was one of the unknowns) was dressed in a strange costume. It was composed of disparate scraps of fabric, clumsily sewn together, moth-eaten and gray-brown with putrescence. The seeker donned the costume and the rest of us scattered. I climbed a flight of steps, perhaps two, or even three, and ducked into the nearest classroom. I knelt beneath a desk for what felt like several minutes. I grew bored and restless, and I decided to peek out the door. I opened the door a few inches and peered out. Everything was dark, the only visible thing the linoleum below me. I opened the door a little more, and out of nowhere came the seeker, who yelled, “You’re caught!” and pointed at me with a large pair of scissors he had filched Page 38
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