I'm downtown in Austin, on Congress Ave--the main street. The dream finds me waking in a clothing store on a corner. The place is small, nearly bare, with a simple counter at the back and a few racks of clothes near the front. It may be a women's clothing store, or it may be a shop for secondhand clothes--or maybe both. I have apparently been sleeping on the floor behind the counter. I stumble around for a few moments trying to wake up. A woman I don't know enters the store and looks at the clothes on one of the racks. I leave but feel uncertain about it; perhaps I should be staying because no one in charge is around. Do I have a key? Should I leave the door unlocked? I decide to leave anyway.
Outside I look across the street and I see the sun is near the horizon. The sky is lit up with an energetic glow. But I can't tell if the sun is setting or rising. Did I wake up in the morning or did I sleep all night and all day? This makes me more anxious, and I set out around the corner away from Congress Ave. and walk uphill. The sky is now darkening and I think that it is evening and not morning.
I search for my car, which I know I parked somewhere downtown, but I can't remember where. Anxiety increases more as I scan every car and concentrate on remembering. I come to the next street, which runs parallel to Congress and pass a black man on the corner. I feel some nervousness at the encounter. Looking across the street I see that there is a ruined building, almost a shard of a building, lit by a last ray of sun. It is brilliantly decorated with colorful grafitti covering every brick. I walk down this street for a block, then turn back towards Congress Ave. At the next intersection I notice that the block is full of brightly colored classic cars parked next to each other and filling all the spaces. They are blue and pink, and parked so that the colors alternate. I 'remember' that there is a classic car convention in town. I walk on and as I get closer to the main street I find myself amid a line of boats being pulled by cars--it is a parade of vehicles, part of the convention. I have to step nimbly to avoid being run over.
When I get back to Congress Ave. the light is increasing again, as though it is in fact dawn. I look around for a telephone so that I can call Sandy to come pick me up and help me look for the car. The only one I see has been vandalized so that the handset is missing from the cord, which dangles down. I'm going over in my mind what I want to say to her, which is that she should meet me at the old library.
Unaccountably, I find myself waking up again. This time Sandy is with me and we are in a small hotel room overlooking the main street. There are two strange men in the room as well, talking to each other and ignoring us. One of them reminds me of P, a gay man I once worked with. I think that it has been many years since I saw him and wonder if he has gotten as fat as I have. I suspect he hasn't if he continued to swim daily.
Then it comes to me with an aha sensation--how could I have been so dumb?--that stories are obviously hardwired into our brains because our unconscious dreams in stories.
I wake up.
