last night's dream...

I was out with a friend. I only remember city scenes and almost hotel like lobbies so maybe we were traveling. The phone rang. But before that or because of that but beyond that the phones were some kind of focus. Kept changing shape—well not really the shape but rather the size of its rectangular dimensions. It looked like every device that’s been advertised on the market—particularly an iphone, blackberry or flat screen tv. So many overwhelmingly crowded bits that I could see nothing and the screen kept changing, not just when I swept my finger across it to twirl the images to the left, but seemingly at random. At some point in the noise encrusted evening of the dream the phone rang and I couldn’t quite make out how to answer it because it had changed and then the ringing stopped and the phone stretched to a larger size, not enabling me to read the itty bitty things better but only to cram more itty bitty things under my nose.

Somehow I detected it was Dad who had tried to reach me and it was so noisy and lively where I was, I figured just as well I missed it, I’ll call him back.

But the phone rang again and then I knew, could feel, something was up, so I did my best to answer it and couldn’t. There’s a little screen near the top of this flat thing and briefly there came an image among the high tech, high flash, neurotic sales bits and movie trailers, briefly there came an image of my Dad sitting in his chair with the bubby standing on his chest in respiratory distress and the look on my father’s face and in his eyes at the camera, at me, was holy terror that the most precious thing in his life couldn’t breathe and if something wasn’t done immediately . . . And so I began to try to call him back except the phone kept taking over. I couldn’t dial the number because the place and pattern of dialing kept changing. The friend who was with me stood by helplessly with her own phone. I was crazy, the harder I tried to dial the number the worse it got and more obnoxious the changing tones and choices for apps and advertisements on the phone. The frantic chaos of it all is indescribable. Even a hotel steward tried to help and merely got in the way like another app or change of screen and the sounds kept following all the frenetic sounds of mass advertising and blockbuster meaningless films and I couldn’t make the phone make a simple phone call or save a life and I was distraught and beside myself.

And when I awoke, there was no break from dreaming, my emotional distress and angst in my throat still linger now thirty minutes later. I cannot get the panicked look on my father’s face out of my mind or throat or that feeling of utter powerlessness to save him or that wonderful little dog...and I realize as I write this that it was my own phone number I kept trying to dial into the phone.