Monday, May 10, 2010


 

I dreamed that I had woken up abruptly and looked out through my front window to see my husband dressed and ready for the day.  He walked along the street in front of our house and stood to say farewell to a friend. My husband’s arms were laden with suitcases.  Where was he going?  He had not told me that he was leaving.  I tore on my dressing gown and raced into the street. 

No, he was not going anywhere, he said, he was simply bringing in the loads of shopping I had neglected to unpack from my car the day before.  We carried them in together.

After I had unloaded the shopping I found myself driving behind the wheel of what I recognised as my car, only the dashboard seemed different from what I had remembered and I had trouble getting the car into gear.  The clutch kept slipping out.

I cut in front of another car and worried it would hit the back of me but I had left enough room to avoid an accident and then I stopped at the bottom of a hill near my house.  Across the road I could see a group of people, adults and children alike all of them dressed in what looked like red and white horizontally striped jump suits.  Some wore beanies with red horns sewn out of material on their heads.  These were serious football supporters, I reasoned.  They must support the team called the Saints.

It was early morning and they were gathering for breakfast, one of them was my son.  I imagined helping him to pack his bag before this meeting.  I had checked his shoes.  They were new with a price tag of $6.00 attached to the side heel.  So cheap.  I wondered that the shop normally quiet on a Sunday morning could manage so many customers at once.

On the other side of the road there were a few similarly dressed football supporters and one or two in the post office where I stood in a queue waiting my turn.  It seemed to take forever to be served and I found myself annoyed when someone at the other end of the room who had come in after me was served before me.

I became huffy in that understated bodily way when I want it to be known that I am cross, that something is amiss but I do not want to shout it out in front of everyone.

The counter formed a half moon and three women stood behind it each serving customers in turn.  Just below the counter shielded from the over fall on the stretch of shadowed carpet I noticed that someone had dropped their watch.  Then I noticed not one watch but two and three and four.  There was a line of watches along the stretch of ground below the counter’s overhang and I set about collecting them.  I had thought at first that I might keep one for myself – stealing I knew, but who cared – finders keepers.

In the end I decided to hand them all over at the counter when it came my turn.  What could I do with watches such as these?  None seemed particularly valuable, but I wondered that so many people in the one store could stand in the queue and lose their watch.  It was uncanny. 
 

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