The room in my dream served several functions: as a consulting room, a classroom and a conference centre.  It was raining outside, and seemingly within.  There must have been several gaps in the tiles on the roof that let in what looked like waterfalls in every corner of the room and even in places in the centre, yet somehow the various people who used this room managed to stay dry.

It was only a matter of time I thought before someone cops a gush of water.  I drank a cup of tea and worried that the water from the ceiling might collect inside my cup and dilute my warm drink into tepid slops.  I worried that the old therapist in the corner who was conducting a session, a man I recognised from my past who is now long dead, might get angry when he found a wet patch on his chair. I worried that the nun taking the small group of primary school children at their desks might turn on me instead of the children she rebuked.  I worried that the people at the conference might ignore me.

Instead, one man, a Canadian came by and passed me a handwritten letter.  I tried to read the words but they were indecipherable. I could only make out that he had been friendly at the last conference and wanted now to send me his good wishes.  His wife had not been able to come this time because of their children.  That much I could tease out.  Perhaps she was pregnant again.

Before I knew it I was in a car accident.  I was a back passenger in a white Volvo station wagon, driven by another of conference participant, this time an American woman and she was now in a state of shock.  Her husband leapt out from the front passenger seat to assess the damage.  The rear passengers joined him.  No one was seriously hurt though a woman who had sat beside me in the car kept asking me to massage her back.  I could not quite get to the right place on her back to give her relief but I kept trying.

Meanwhile the driver and her husband and some other helpers managed to un-crumple the roof of the car so that we could drive off again.  It looked almost as if no damage had been done, though the driver was still in a state of shock and I sensed she blamed the accident on the quality of roads in Australia.