I get up from my desk and head down the corridor to a vaguely hidden exit from the office I am in. I walk down a flight of stairs, maybe two, and exit into a small vestibule.
I am a little confused but walk down the small rubberized cargo ramp placed over a threshold to a door at one end. I go through the door into another corridor. I walk to the end, turn left and go through the door there and into another office that seems completely unused.
I am confused and lost and I’m not sure where I am. In fact I am not even sure I work here. But I go through one of the doors available to me and continue on my way.
I pass offices that seem long unoccupied. There is a door every once and a while but all are locked. I somehow realize this without even trying to open one of them.
Eventually I realize that I have no idea where I am and attempt to retrace my steps. As simple as those steps are I realize that I don’t know how I got to where I am now.
In the back of my mind. Way down deep, in the place of vague echoes. I realize that I am dreaming. But I am merely an observer, watching, as I continue on.
Eventually I manage to get back to some place that seems familiar and I take a different door than one I did on my way out. Somehow this door seems to satisfy me. As if it was the way back, even though I know that it isn’t.
The fog of sleep starts to lift. The endless maze of corridors with doors that lead only to other corridors with more nameless, faceless doors starts to recede. The sounds of the house around me fade into consciousness. The sound of the heat coming on, the occasional creak of the rafters. The faraway roar as someone with a motorcycle leaves home on their way to work.
I get out of bed. The dream, unlike most, continues to hover over me like a dark cloud on a sunny day.
Finished in the bathroom I pad across the cool floors of my house and pour a glass of orange juice. Back in the living room the iPod attached to my stereo goes on. Opie and Anthony pick up mid-word. Yelling deprecations at liberals, celebrities, comedians or the latest caller that thinks they have the chops to beat Jim Norton in an argument. As usual they are wrong.
All of this slips into the background as I open up the MacBook and check my mail. Nothing interesting, just a half dozen automated messages from job boards with more jobs that I am not interested in or qualified for.
I pop Google Reader to the front and do what my father would call reading the morning paper. A blur of tech and gadget news flashes by. On the iPod someone refers to another celebrity as looking like a “Slapped Arse.” The news and entertainment stories slide by. I am as aware of their content as I am of what is happening on the iPod: only vaguely.
Still the Corridor Dream hovers over me. It is the elephant in the room. The thing that you don’t talk about and try not to think about. And yet it occupies so much of your mind it crowds out everything going on around you.
A week later the dream is still with me. I give in and write it down.
I know what it means. I just wish I knew which door to take.