Dream Journal
I was walking down a small road lined with shacks and falling down homes. It was very dark, and I had a sense that I was underground. I stopped in front of my uncle’s home, a disintegrating two-story building. I knew that no one was home, so I stood there staring at his home for some time. Two people ran up to a corner of his house, threw torches into the building, and then ran off.
I watched his house catch on fire. I pulled out my cell phone to dial 911, but it rang through to an informational hotline. I hung up and looked at my phone: the last number I had called was not 911, but some other three-digit number. I tried again and successfully reported the fire.
I continued down the dark and dirty road and met up with Pam’s family. Pam’s brothers were running all around and I stood at their mantle looking at family photographs. Pam had a terrible harelip, and I wondered if she would ever find someone to marry her. But then in a family portrait I saw that her mom had an identical harelip, and she married and had four children.
I found my uncle at my parents’ large house up on the hill, but he didn’t seem concerned that his home was burning. I tried to get him to go to his house, but he preferred to hold a glass of beer and look at my parents’ view of the bay.
I went down the hill to my uncle’s house and found that the fire had gone out on its own pretty quickly, and only the upstairs had been damaged. I told myself that he could still live in the downstairs of the house if he wanted.