Two Hundred and Ninety One

Last night's dream.

I’m in the city hall plaza.  People are everywhere, and none of them are wearing masks.  Neither am I.  Is the pandemic over?  We’re behaving as though it is.

As usual, I’m lost.  I can’t remember where I parked my car.

As I walk across the plaza, I see a parked motorcycle.  It looks like the one I had when I was in college.  But how can that be?  That was half a century ago, in a city half a continent away.  Nevertheless I get on, and try to start it.

It starts, so I ride it around the plaza, getting used to it again.  But then it stops.  I try to start it again, but I can't, so I get off and walk towards city hall.  I go inside, intending to telephone a friend (apparently in this dream I have friends) and ask them to come pick me up.

The building is full of workmen in white coveralls.  One of them tells me I shouldn’t be there because they’re going from room to room spray painting every surface white. 

An overhead loudspeaker announces the sequence in which the rooms are being painted.  Just as I open the door marked 6, in order to leave, the loudspeaker announces that room 6 is now being spray painted.  I quickly close the door, just in time to avoid being spray painted.  The workman tells me I’ll now have to wait inside the building until the paint dries.