boccaderlupo | A more solid hell

I dreamed we were in the guts of a stolid looking apartment block that on the outside resembled Castel Sant'Angelo, a fortress. Inside, the corridors were a hospital green. We were waiting for the elevator, my son, my brother, and I. Apparently the basketball player Michael Jordan lived somewhere in the place, and every day at around 4 p.m. he would emerge from his apartment to pick up a newspaper and a food delivery and wave at fans. For some reason, we wanted to be waved at. We didn't know which apartment was his, so we wandered around, from floor to floor.

A guy peered from around the corner of one corridor on the right, which was also a step below us. He was fumbling for words. "Hey mister..." he says with a crooked mouth, holding his chin, and then reaches behind him. His hand is pointing like a gun when you are a kid—forefinger pointing as the barrel and thumb up. "Pew pew," says the guy, shooting at me.

I dived to my left, imaginary bullets passing by. The guy stepped up to our level and loomed over me. "Wouldn't think a civilian could move like that," he says, and disappears.

*

I dreamed the wife and I were driving through the night on a highway, with slushy snow falling. We were going to Canada, for some reason, and all the signs were in kilometers. It was one of those dreams were you sense that you are being hurried along, a sense of not being able to keep up. Like being tailgated. I pulled off the nearest exit, not knowing where we were. My wife was turning around maps in the semi-darkness. I was convinced there was a rest stop with fried chicken somewhere coming up, I could just tell it. My wife was skeptical.

We didn't know where we were. In the distance, the blurred lights of the highway. At least it was cold.