la bomba shelter

Wheely dream

I became concerned when I got close.  Something had gone wrong  at our cute little split level while I was away for a few months.  Maintenance was out the window.  The yard was littered with junk cars.  Windows were broken, doors displaced and hanging loosely, trash everywhere.  Water trickled from a hole in the wall.  Inside the place looked like it had been ransacked.  Unattended children and others were milling about.

I found a woman who seemed to be my stepmother.  She looked ashamed and began to explain.  I said, ‘Wait!  Hold that thought!  I just need to go up to my room for a few minutes.’  In my 11×11 room in the back corner of the upper floor I found my friend Bruce sitting on a little cot in the corner.  There was also a hastily and badly built large bed that filled up most of the rest of the room, with three sleeping positions in a row with light blue wool blankets with dirty white pillows.  Boarders from Russia, to judge from the style of the blankets and the few personal items.

‘Bruce, I have to have my room back immediately.  Isn’t there someplace else you and these guys can go?’

We walk downstairs to the basement.  Only it isn’t the same basement.  It is as big as a football field with a 24 foot high ceiling.  On the far end there are some big gates and it appears to be open to a light filled valley beyond.  There is nobody around but there is some earth moving equipment parked there, and some walls have been framed.  We walk to a spot on the far wall.  ‘The Russians could move down here,’ I suggest.  ‘They could each have a suite as big as a house, instead of sharing my small room.’  Bruce looked at me with a frown, as if to say that isn’t going to happen and I can’t tell you why.

Such a strange atmosphere.  It’s like the owners have become tenants.  The house is part of a huge project, but the profits are going to an absentee slumlord who is letting the property become a rundown health hazard!

Awake and thinking about it for awhile, I decided the whole dream was a metaphor of Alaska.