Black and White Movies

I dreamed I was walking through a part of town I don’t live in and haven’t been near in years. The sidewalks were teeming with people pushing cases of all sorts of artifacts and items like books and clothes. It seemed like a very large and portable marketplace surrounding me. I pointed to a shelf of dvds blocking the entrance to a shop and explained to someone going by that some of the movies were from me because I wanted to help one of the shopkeepers who’d been in some sort of trouble.

The scene shifted to a subway type platform and a black girl was walking by me singing something very soulful but indistinguishable. I marveled at the sound and found myself again in a crowd on a narrow makeshift pathway near my office.

The route was marked with string and pickets and lined with hordes of children who were laughing and shouting. The idea was that you were supposed to pick up a trophy from a box on the right side and a badge from the back of a pick up truck on the left as you went along. I waved them off and they accepted this as they knew I was just going through to get to my building which I could now see across the street.

After making it through the crowd, I ended up at the foot of a hill that used to be near my childhood home. I started up the hill and was walking just behind and to the side of another black woman who I recognized but couldn’t place. I began telling her about the woman I’d heard singing earlier and she smiled at me and nodded while I talked and she said good-bye to me as she entered a house at the top of the hill.

As I started back down the hill, I realized I would probably be late for work and so I took out my cell phone from my pants pocket to make a call to my boss. It wasn’t my current phone but one I used to have. As I flipped it open, two dead bugs on their backs lay crushed against the screen. They were long slender bugs with wings and reminded me of earwigs.

I rummaged for and found a tissue to wipe them away with but then one of them stirred, flipped over and flew away. I could tell the other one was definitely dead but then it too stirred, flipped itself over and flew away. I was puzzled but figured I’d best make the call anyway. As I started to dial, I woke up.