2.26.2008

Broken

We are in some kind of run-down hotel room. My grandmother is in the bathroom showering, and my brother and I are in the living/sleeping area surveying the place. I'm going from window to window, closing the blinds and then the sheers and then the drapes. I get everything closed and then realize that the door in and out of the room is a huge sliding-glass door. There are no blinds or anything on it. It looks out onto a courtyard — a busy area spotted with dark, damp soil and clumps of grass.

I go over to the door and attempt to open it, when I look down and realize that the thing has shattered and I've sliced my finger open. I can't really say that it hurts too much. I decide that my brother — in the dream, he's young, maybe 12 — and I need to go to the office to report the breakage so maybe they'll move us to a different room. We peek outside the room, down the courtyard, and see a skanky-looking hand-painted sign pointing us to the office. Suddenly it feels like we're in the poor, rural part of another country, possibly Mexico.

We traipse down to the office and attempt to explain what happened to the door. The clerks — who are old with deeply grooved, tanned faces — don't seem terribly swayed. In fact, they want to turn it around like we should have to pay for the damage, which I'm not even sure we caused.

I try to convince them that they are the ones at fault. I even brag that I was cut, implying that I could sue their asses. They are utterly nonplussed.

8 comments:

sarah saint said...

"nonplussed"

Sure? ;D

theogeo said...

I like to use words when I don't know what they mean.

sarah saint said...

It's cool. I just found out a couple days ago that I had been using it incorrectly for the past two decades.

Anonymous said...

I really hope it means confused, because otherwise I'ma be pissed.

sarah saint said...

It does. I had always thought it was something like unconcerned or unruffled. Nope.

Anonymous said...

I context interpreted the word "punctual" during the summer before 6th grade. The sentence, followed a paragraph about a student being late, but holding her chin up and not letting it ruin her day. The sentence was, "I was trying to be punctual." So I thought the word meant something else. Then my evil 6th grade math teacher asked what punctual meant, and I raised my hand and unleashed this flailing, retarded description that went something like, "Like, always looking on the bright side of things, or you know, like, not letting the small stuff get you down, you know? Like, optimistic about life and situations..." This whole time I could tell her face was filtering through my brainarrhea to find even one shred of a correct answer. Then someone else raised their hand and said, "On time?" And she smiled and pointed at him and said, "Correct!" and continued briskly with the lesson.

Anonymous said...

And don't ask me what I was trying to do with the punctuation of those first two sentences. Because I'm totally nonplussed.

sarah saint said...

That's a funny story.