Death and politeness
Jul. 3rd, 2021 08:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
boccaderlupoI dreamed we were at a party in someone's kitchen, floor a checkerboard light blue and white. There were shutters of the same light blue blocking off one part of the house from another. My father was there, and in a jovial mood. I had to remind him that he was dead, but he just shrugged, and continued to laugh along with people. But then at times he would disappear, and then reappear entirely. People didn't seem to pay much attention to my father's state of existence.
I handed him a glass of sangria and we stood off to the side. "You should really tell these people that you are dead," I advised him in a hushed tone. "What will they think when they find out? And that this was maybe their last interaction with you?"
He just gave me that wide-open grin of his, and plunged back into the crowd.
The shutters in the other room opened, and someone was doing a traditional dance, maybe from Italy, maybe from Brasil. I recognized some capoeiristas I know, and we just nodded.
Somewhere else in the party, some old acquaintances from the bookstore showed up. They were hanging out a random corridor. Although we hadn't see each other for decades, the talk flowed, about this and that, as if no time had passed, the same old gnawing jokes. They would leave random plastic cups here and there, which I found myself gathering up and stacking, and finally throwing away.
Outside, in the rain, an old dog, maybe a golden retriever with longish hair, sat under a fern. He saw a woman trying to cross a busy street, and despite his age ran up beside her, barking with authority. The traffic slowed. The woman crossed. The old dog retired back into the shade of the brush, water pouring off it. Who did he belong to? I walked over to him and petted him, and saw that he seemed to be blind. He rolled on his back in joy.
I handed him a glass of sangria and we stood off to the side. "You should really tell these people that you are dead," I advised him in a hushed tone. "What will they think when they find out? And that this was maybe their last interaction with you?"
He just gave me that wide-open grin of his, and plunged back into the crowd.
The shutters in the other room opened, and someone was doing a traditional dance, maybe from Italy, maybe from Brasil. I recognized some capoeiristas I know, and we just nodded.
Somewhere else in the party, some old acquaintances from the bookstore showed up. They were hanging out a random corridor. Although we hadn't see each other for decades, the talk flowed, about this and that, as if no time had passed, the same old gnawing jokes. They would leave random plastic cups here and there, which I found myself gathering up and stacking, and finally throwing away.
Outside, in the rain, an old dog, maybe a golden retriever with longish hair, sat under a fern. He saw a woman trying to cross a busy street, and despite his age ran up beside her, barking with authority. The traffic slowed. The woman crossed. The old dog retired back into the shade of the brush, water pouring off it. Who did he belong to? I walked over to him and petted him, and saw that he seemed to be blind. He rolled on his back in joy.
