LOST in a Dream

In the dream, I am out in a yard filled with lush tropical vegetation.  I hear someone call from inside the house, but I can’t go in because Ee is with me, and she wants to keep playing on the swings.

“Hey,” I say, “can you watch her?”

Kate turns around, she’s all sweaty, but her hair looks great.  “No problem,” she smiles.

I enter the house, which is filled with all kinds of tchotchkes that I have to wade through.  Finally I get to the second floor, and I realize: this is my grandmother’s house.  The first door off the landing belongs to my great uncle.  I turn the knob and crack it open, and immediately I’m hit with that old man smell, a kind of mixture of old sweat, old shoes and hair tonic with a pinch of doily on the dresser.  I open the door a little further and there’s Sawyer. going through my uncle’s drawers, sifting through sepia photographs.

“He-ey!” he calls in a sing-songy tone.

“Stop that!” I say.

“He-ey!” he repeats, exactly the same way, with the second syllable an octave higher than the first.

“Stop it,” I plead.

“He-ey!” He just keeps doing it, and I keep telling him to stop until finally, I open my eyes, and there’s Manfrengensen, asleep next to me.  He’s on his back, and he’s snoring in the same loud, sing-songy tone Sawyer was using.

Time to start my day.