Apartment-sitting

I am in an upscale walk-up apartment, completely alone. I've seen this apartment before, either in another dream or on TV or somewhere. Never in real life, that I recall. It feels like I'm babysitting, because I have an obligation to be there, but there's no kid around. In fact, most of the rooms are completely empty.

I start out at the front door and give myself a little tour of the place. The apartment is classy, with nice hardwood floors, white-paneled walls, molding, the whole deal. As I walk through the rooms, I notice that it's dark outside, and every light in the place is on. First off the foyer is the office, I presume, which leads to another foyer-type room that I suspect would be a kid's playroom (that contains nothing but a set of dumbells), and then finally what I suspect would be the kid's room. It's trimmed out with mirrors on the two far walls, making it look like an incredibly huge room. It is also completely creepy. I stand there, looking at myself and around the room through the mirror. The pressure and weirdness becomes intense.

So I scurry out, and back through all the rooms. I notice that I'm hearing some kind of low drone coming from the walls. It also freaks me out. I feel completely alone and yet so not alone. I make my way back through the foyer and into the other wing of the house, where the living room is. It's well-lit and furnished, unlike the other wing of the apartment. I look around and realize that there's no TV (I instantly think of Amber's TV-less babysitting duties), so I grab something to read (a newspaper?) and sit on the plush leather couch. I settle in and lean back, only to see a little spider web with several huge egg sacks hanging between two cushions. I jump up and do a little ew-gross-spider! jig, and continue walking around the place.

Keep moving, keep moving.

The living room is trimmed out with the craziest details. Chandeliers and mirrors — even mirror illusions. There is a white baby grand piano behind a wall, but the wall is bent and mirrored so that it's like you're looking at the piano right there in front of you. Beside it is a little room, sort of shaped like a squared bubble, that's trimmed in tiny mirrors that look like diamonds sparkling. Inside is a tiny stool you can sit on to watch someone play that piano. Only it looks like no one should sit on the stool because it's a valuable heirloom from the Renaissance.

I sit down in a chair and realize that there is a TV after all — it's one of those old floor units that looks like furniture. I turn it on and watch a bit, trying to turn it down to not disturb the downstairs neighbors, but realizing that after to turn the volume down all the way, if you keep trying to inch the volume down, it just gets louder. Even the mute button doesn't eradicate the noise. So I turn the TV off and pass by the couch again, to give those egg sacks a closer look.

How can a spider have enough time to spit out this many egg sacks on a couch that's regularly used? I wonder. And then I see it — crawling up the back of the center cushion. It's big — not bird-eating tarantula big, but at least half-dollar big — and a deep red color that I don't see to many real-life spiders in.

It skittered up the back of the couch cushion and — get this — took a flying leap onto the floor like it owned the fucking place. (Which, I suppose, maybe it did; no one else seemed to be taking care of the place.) It skittered around on the floor, toward me, away from me, with business to do, and I instantly launched into KILL IT mode. I looked for things to use to squish it and came up short. I chased it around with a folded newspaper and realized that its super-spider speed would present my scared ass a challenge. Every time I'd lunge for it, it would scuttle toward my feet or — horrifyingly — leap over my head. I finally gave up when I realized it was hopeless. And when I realized I was drooling everywhere and woke up.