Saturday, October 3, 2009

Dreams of Sinking Parisian Balloonscapes

Last night I had a strange dream. I was in Paris, and I had met a Finnish girl there in a haunted house. I remember telling her that I was learning Hungarian, and we talked about how Hungarian and Finnish are somewhat close (at least in the same language family). I asked her how long she had been in Paris. We got to talking about how we had both entered and had been chosen for this raffle, for a chance to ride on this multi-level floating underwater building thing. It was a scientific breakthrough, it was as big as a skyscraper. It was held together with old cars, and the whole thing was made out of inflatable rubber/plastic. I took pictures of it before we went on the first "test dive". This was supposed to make it possible for people to live underwater in the future. So we went underwater, and were theoretically supposed to be avoiding some evil squid monsters. An announcer said that it was going well, and welcome to this exclusive view into new technology. We were lucky to have been chosen in this raffle. The announcer said that this plan was fool-proof, except when someone jumped up and down. It created a shock-wave that flipped me onto my head, like a waterbed. We went through several underwater stations with workers in headsets. The plastic floor was leaking slightly.
Finally, it was time for us to "live" on this unbelievably huge, underwater balloonscape, held together by old cars, all the while trying to avoid the evil squids which would surely pop our underwater inflatable city. Much happened while we were underwater, my Finnish friend became ill and so I bought her black and red eyeliner in the giftshop. Eventually and inevitably, the squids came to pop our city. Water was leaking in, and we were all struggling to evacuate. We were somehow in this giant pool now. I was trying to gather up all of my belongings, and there was an auction going on for all of the items that had been "orphaned" because of the popping city. I was concerned I wouldn't get out, but still couldn't decide on all of the items from my room that I would take. My dolls? My art? My skull collection? How could I leave any of it behind after I had worked so hard to collect it? Finally my Finnish friend told me I could take two trash bags full of items. I grabbed some of my sister's old stuffed animals. I cried and lamented over the furniture and various marionettes that I couldn't fit into my bag.
The inflatable balloonscape finally flipped, and my friend and I, being on the first floor, were now at the bottom of the pool. I swam to the top and remember seeing floating, sleeping people and all of their belongings floating around them.
I awoke with a vague feeling of sorrow, of all of the items that I love but will not be able to take with me to Hungary. I feel guilty, and regretful that some of my collections must stay behind.

No comments:

Post a Comment