Story: Oneiromancy, III

(Part O , II , IV)

The man, whose name was Stanley, awoke and stared blankly up at the ceiling for a little while in the darkened room. The curtains were bright with restrained light, and in an instant of strained reflection Stanley bolted out of bed and jumped for the bathroom.

Shaving and washing when you're two hours later for work is an activity which can only lead to trouble. After a couple of cuts and a bruise from hitting his knee on the shower door, Stanley barrelled out of the bathroom, dressed in a frenzy and almost slid out of the front door and into the outside world. Fortunately, Stanley had long stuck to the adage that commuting was evil and so lived almost next door to his place of work, the Deuteronomy Comprehensive School, and was in walking distance of the supermarket. It was his own little slice of heaven.

Walking hurriedly up the main entrance road into the school, Stanley waved off the offended looking headmaster Mr Deakins and scurried up to his class room and his first lesson of the day. He was five minutes late. Deakins was coming down the corridor so the somewhat confused teacher pulled himself together with a sheer force of will and entered the classroom.

One lesson later, and with much buffeted confidence, our unwitting protagonist entered the canteen and snagged a portable lunch before proceeding with all due deliberation and courage to the staff room where the inevitable grilling would occur. If he were lucky he'd be taken away by Dopey Deakins for an interrogation and if he wasn't lucky then his head of department Diane would get to him first. For a moment he considered what his excuse would be for being late and missing tutorials and the dream shuddered into his mind for a moment before he shuffled it off for later reflection. There could be no time for his crazy visions right now. Even if they were getting worse.

The staff room was quiet this early in the lunch period so Stanley dropped onto a couch and munched thoughtfully on his lunch as the sunshine gleamed temptingly through the window. Divertingly beautiful sunshine always seemed to be the worst part of Mondays, reminding him of what he could be doing outside, how that big pile of forms and marking wasn't so important, and that really teaching was an intolerable circumstance for this most wonderful of days.

Deakins came in and Stanley murmured a small sigh of relief. The headmaster was a decent sort, and Stanley had a decent record of being a good and reliable teacher. Then Diane came in too and he settled in for a long lunch.

Many hours later, Stanley walked out of the main street entrance to the school and stared vaguely about him before ducking into his house and meditating for a moment. Then, in the kitchen he opened the fridge and looked at the bareness before grumpily putting a pile of papers in a bag and setting off for the supermarket and maybe a restaurant too. It was the kind of day that would never get back to pattern, that would fight any attempts to make it more regular, so he would embrace it. Eventually ending up in the local library he set to work marking and was making progress when finally closing time came and he trundled home once again.

Only when he was about to go to sleep again did he realise that his waitress had had short blonde hair and been hauntingly familiar, and his dream of the preceding night did come back to mind, and then he fell asleep and began to Dream.


To continue...