I dreamed I was visiting the school I had kindergarten in, in Corpus Christi, Texas. It was white sided Victorian building nestled in medieval stone cloisters. Slate roofs had been added to form halls where there had been yards, and one of the roofs had collapsed. I could remember walking there as a child.
In my pocket I found a letter I had written as an assignment to the person I admired most. It contained the word "adulation," which of course I used as a five year old. Who wouldn't? I had written it, not to anyone famous or family, but a girl who was two years ahead of me at the school. She was attending the same reunion I was, so I gave her the letter, and we became Facebook friends.
The reunion committee had collected a bunch of home videos, and they were on a loop in the cafeteria. I saw my kindergarten self, and there was a man's hand resting on my head, patting my curls. His fingers were covered with enormous, flashing rings. One was a rectangular cut red stone almost as long as his finger. But I knew it was my dad, because on another finger I could see his Aggie ring.
I went fishing with my mother and sister. We were sitting on the steps of the seawall, and I could see large fish swimming just beneath the surface. I cast out my line with a hunk of chicken meat on it, right in front of a 3-foot drum. I was just using a bamboo cane pole, so I couldn't reel my line in, but I tugged it around in the water to entice the fish. Then I realized I'd actually got the attention of a nine-foot shark. I yanked my line back to shore, but unfortunately the shark followed it, and we all fled up the steps as it flopped around out of water below us.
Since further fishing was clearly out, I went to the mall to pick up a few things. I realized I was running late, and needed to board the boat to Antarctica. I jumped on my bike, and sped to the embarkation terminal on the ground floor of the mall. But I couldn't take my bike aboard, so I needed to lock it up, but I didn't have a lock.
The school groups were all boarding, so I figured I had time. The embarkation host helping me kept telling me things, but she was whispering from four feet away, so I couldn't hear her. I ran to a few shops, but finally found a bike lock in a vending machine. It took me a while to figure out how to work it, though. By the time my bike was locked up and I'd dug out my passport, I could only stand and watch my Antarctica cruise ship sail out of port. And then I woke up.
