Sleeping with Stage Fright

One of the great things about writing stories is that you get to write stories about dreams once in a while. This is one of those stories.

Disclaimer upfront. It’s a dream, so none of this is going to make much sense.

I find myself with my wife in my condo building in downtown Arlington Heights. But there is something odd. Several floors below our apartment is a series of stores, a mall in fact. There are elevators everywhere. Our goal? To just get home. How hard is that? Well, if it’s a dream that’s threatening to become a nightmare, it’s going to be pretty darn hard indeed.

Every time I manage to find an elevator there are people already there and waiting. We can’t seem to get onto the elevator. It comes, people leave, people enter, but we can never manage to get in. These elevators are fast.

My wife leaves to try an alternate route. She was complaining that she has a Garden Guild event and she is late. I am alone. It’s official. This is a nightmare. I pass by a grocery store. I never knew there was a grocery store in my building? How could I have not known this. Store after store, it seems endless. I arrive at another elevator and attempt to go up to our home. No luck.

I suddenly realize why I wanted to get to my apartment so badly. There is a large theater in our building. This dream has gotten crazy. I never knew there was a theater in our building. How odd? Oh no, and what’s worse. My name is on the marquee. That’s right. That’s why I need to get home. I am going on stage in a few hours and I have never read my lines. How will I memorize them so fast? I have to get home now!

I approach another elevator. There are friendly people gathered but we cannot get on. I look up. There is no roof. The sky is open. How can that even be? My apartment is above me. But, sure enough, it’s open sky. I look closer and I realize it is beginning to snow. Well, not snow exactly. It’s an ice storm and its coming down heavy now. The ice is in the shape of large long cylinders. It is piling up fast. I look out and the falling ice is damaging property and hitting humans. This is bad!

I look at my fellow elevator rider want-to-be’s and say, “We need shelter! This is bad!” I see a brick roofed ceiling nearby and call everyone over to hide under it. We do. The place where we were just standing fills with falling ice cylinders, crashing and crushing while rising.

Someone standing with me has their phone out. They are listening to a news report. People have died from the ice storm. All events are canceled. So no Garden Guild. No theater. I don’t have to memorize my stage lines. I feel relieved. I see my friends Cliff and Greg. Why are they here? Greg tells me he is planning to make appetizers for a party he hosting at our apartment this afternoon. But he needs some ingredients. I remember there is now a grocery store in our building and suggest we go there.

I run into my wife’s brother, Richard. Why? He says he is in from NYC to see my wife, Carrie and I, in a stage play. I inform him that the play has been canceled. He believes that I have my facts wrong and I should get home right away and memorize my lines.

I’m standing in front of an elevator and it opens. No one is inside. I walk in.

I wake and it is morning. The sun is up. My wife rolls over and ask me how I slept. I say, “fine.”

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