I’ve met up with my family at a gathering in some large, densely-packed room at a house in Pennsylvania. At some point, I notice Claire is there, too, standing against the wall. I haven’t seen or spoken to her in years. So I walk up to her, and as we talk and interact, her state of body and mind concerns me.
She is incredibly skinny, very frail-looking, and speaks in this sort of baby voice. She doesn’t seem to be all there mentally, either. As we speak, she mostly whispers in my ear to talk. She tells me she’s an alcoholic. That she came down here to get into a program, to go to a special school.
She begins kissing me on the lips, which eventually prompts me to deeply kiss her. This surprises her and she pulls back after a moment, seemingly embarrassed. Behind me, I see some woman, maybe in her 50s, looking in our direction in a very disapproving manner, and I suddenly feel guilty over the public display of affection.
There’s some other guy we both know with us now and suddenly, without warning, Claire tries to reach her hand down his pants, but we both stop her.
“We used to date,” she says, suggesting that, to her mind, this made it okay. I try to make her understand that if she did this, it would be bad, and that it would perhaps me many years before she could look back on it and see it as funny in retrospect.
Then I wake up.
I grab the yellow notebook nearby, and try to commit the dream to writing before the details fade. I get distracted by the actual party, however, and after it’s over and everyone leaves, I leave to walk home. I kept getting lost and trapped, however. I was trapped in a pit surrounded by garbage at some point, trying to get out, and then found myself trapped in fenced-off areas in what seemed to be backyards.
I finally got out my cell and called my dad, but failed the first time. The second time, he picked up, but he speaks in an ominous tone and in a cryptic way that seems to suggest he’s angry that I’ve forgotten something, or have failed to realize something.
I asked if they could pick me up. He asked if it was Wednesday, and then said that maybe we should wait until midnight. As I wake up — again — I’m uttering aloud a perplexed and frustrated, “What?”
A dream within a dream. Again.
I grab the yellow notebook — again.
My mind is a fucking Chinese Box.
Chronicles of a Madman. 