ysobelle | What did I eat last night???

My G-d. This morning's dream left my lower jaw on the pillow after it was done waking me up.

A bunch of people, including me, were going into an old building I know on Lombard Street. The guy in front, who looked like Captain Mal, was going to buy it. Partly because I thought he was cute-- even though I knew he was married-- and partly because I knew the building, I wanted to go in and explore. I thought it'd once been Neziner, a lovely old synagogue which had once been a church. We had to unwind a long string of wires like Christmas lights to get in, and they turned out to be not as tangled as we thought, so it was easy. We did know there were squatters living in it, and the landlord'd said there was water, but no electricity or heat.

When we got inside, I realised that though it'd been a church that was renovated into a house, it hadn't been Neziner, but a different chirch, and mused as much aloud. It was a fairly decent, if grossly out-of-style house inside, with floral couches and green carpet. And it smelled awful.

It had been light outside, but it was dark as night inside. We all split up to explore. There was a huge main room, with two narrow staircases behind doors at the back, leading up to several rooms above a kitchen. There was trash everywhere, and cats. And yes, people had been living in what had been family rooms. It looked like the family had had teenage kids: the rooms were badly painted, and covered in stickers and posters. I even considered what Mal would have to do to convert it to a modern, bright home: what walls he'd have to move to get light inside the dark, cramped spaces.

We all wandered for a while, and eventually, while looking for the Captain, I went into one room which had a small, portable fireplace in it for heat, and some light. The fumes from the open flame smelled awful. He was there, hanging out with the squatters, and showed no signs of leaving any time soon. Bored, I wandered into another, darker room and decided to take a nap. I looked more closely at some of the cats, and realised they were genetically modified by computer to have the most fascinating markings: like strawberry and black leopards. Some had only a few spots over tabby-colouring, but some were little Big Cats. I took off my shoes and carefully laid down in one of the beds, aware it was probably filthy-- but I was tired, so what could I do? I dreamed of the two Irish girls who lived in that room and had worked on the cats as a lark. They'd not been able to find work at home, I saw in a documentary-like dream, and so came to the States. When I awoke, they'd come home, and were now black. And, of course, somewhat disconcerted to find people in "their" home. I was equally uncomfortable, and decided it was time to find my shoes, find my cats-- Marble, Simon, and Tekiah were with me-- and skeedaddle.

I searched everywhere for my shoes. The problem, of course, was that the place was full of trash and old clothes. Shoes were everywhere, but none of them mine. I looked all over, and even debated just grabbing a pair, but I figured that they probably all belonged to the girls, so I shouldn't. I passed my own cats a few times, amongst the others, blissed out and napping with all their new friends. Even Tekiah, who couldn't define "friend" if you handed her a cat dictionary. I also spoke with the girls, imploring them to get serious about hunting for real jobs. I told them if they could genetically engineer designer cats on the computer, there was no telling what they could do. I must have made some kind of deal with them, as they told me to take whatever shoes fit. They really were quite nice. The girls, not the shoes-- though the footwear was nice, too.

Eventually, I found Tekiah and Simon, and tucked them into my armpits to take them home. My Dad was there, and he offered to take me to his car. I wandered out into the main room: it was huge now, and bright. Mal was there, talking with a somewhat annoyed landlord about what needed still to be fixed before the purchase could go through. The pipes up along the ceiling were old, and leaky, and probably all needed replacing. But despite the ancient, trash-strewn rooms, and the squatters, and the smell upstairs, this downstairs was hosting some kind of function. As Dad and I made our way out, I passed well-dressed people, and hors d'oeuvres: a plate of deviled eggs, next to a plate of enormous hard-boiled eggs. I mused that they must've been goose eggs, and how nice was that?

With a cat disappearing into each armpit, we started for the car. And kept walking. And walking. And walking. We passed parts of the city I'd never seen before, mostly Hispanic, filled with movie theaters and kids in muscle cars cruising for girls. There were fine old buildings, and I realised it once must have been a separate town that Philadelphia had simply absorbed at some point. Finally I looked at my dad and asked him, "My G-d, how far away did you park?" And then I realised something was terribly wrong.

I raced back to the house and ran through it. I knew who I was, now, and I knew what was happening, but I had to pretend I didn't. I put on a nonchalant face for Mal and the others, but I knew I had to find the last cat, Marble. She was somewhere in the trash-strewn house, somewhere in all the other cats. It took forever to find her and drag her out, but just as I did, it was too late. She knew that I'd figured it out.

She pulled out her sword to kill me as the house fell away, and we were both in the real world: the huge, grey steel chamber. I was faster, and hacked at her until parts of her cat skin fell away to reveal the long-limbed cyborg beneath. My companion, behind me, flickered between the imaginary world, where he comically held a plastic knife and tried to get me to see reason, and reality, where he, like I, was a condemned criminal, doomed to live out life as a guard in an horrifically violent, vengeful prison. We had failed our mission. We had broken the veil of illusion. And the Warden was coming.

He pulled out his own sword: a katana-type blade, glistening with blue electricity. I knew I was going to die. And then, suddenly, I realised he was aiming for the last guard, who had tried to escape, and now, flickering between real cyborg and illusionary cat, was caught. In reality, she had been violent and vicious, a figure of terror and cruelty. But now, minutes from her terminal malfunction, her brain was still in the small, half-furred shape of the cat, head-butting the Warden's shin, looking for affection.

I looked at him, I looked at the crowd that had gathered to see someone, anyone, slaughtered. No, I said, it's no contest to kill this cat. She's going to die in a few minutes anyway-- let her die this way. Don't bring her back to this horrible world to kill her. Let her escape, if only in her mind. The Warden raised his sword...and with a sigh, sheathed it. He pulled out a book, sat down, and began to read to her, stroking her little cat skull.

The sound of her purring followed me as I walked away.