Part 3 The waitress - Glimpse IV

As she suspected she was in the big dream city. The high rise apartment building that she came out of looked brutalist but the building next to it had some kind of greek or roman columns.

She made her way down the hill looking around trying to find her bearings. She was at the intersection of several tram lines, and to her right a big station with a turn around that seemed to be the end of the line. To her left the hill went down even deeper.

She knew she was at the same city because down the hill the tall gilded structure rose from the ground, ever present, ever central. It looked like an upside down pan-flute shaped castle, surrounded by a park with lawns and rectangular alees. And in front of the building complex a row of huge fountains shot water into the clouds.

It seems she was looking at the complex from the side and so she looked for the sun but it was in the clouds, yet sunlight came from her back. The light had always been confusing for her here. The sun didn’t seem to follow a natural pattern, or maybe it wasn’t Earth’s sun.

While walking downhill she saw on her left a tall stone staircases that led to an open air farmer’s market, and on her right a row of shops held up art deco style apartment blocks. Bagels, key duplication, chinese food, lawyer firm, exchange shops, you name it, they were there. And they looked like they had been there forever, one of the shops made some keys she had only seen in movies.

She wondered if the chimera apartment was her imprint on this world. She had been to some places she had never seen before which didn’t even look terrestrial. She couldn’t have dreamed or imagined them. This city looked european to her, but the layout of the streets reminded her of Japan. yet the other places... “No, those were not from my mind”.

When she arrived at the big plaza, across the gilded complex she looked around and noticed it was surrounded by tall white buildings, which seemed like marble but were most likely concrete. Most European buildings in this century were covered in green walls so this plaza had to be a few centuries old, at least two, maybe four.

A subway entrance was close by and shopping malls, banks and cinema complexes inhabited the bases of the structures. They looked like a octagonal white wall surrounding the plaza, but with slits for the streets, from which cars and people flowed and pooled into the park and surrounding areas.

For a moment she was tempted to go into the subway. The dark channels always led her home, to the outside world, but they were also down there, searching for her, trying to catch her at the border when she crossed.

In the end she turned her gaze upward to her right. Up on the hill was another tall structure, maybe a religious one, she was never sure, but she had been on that hill before she recognized it. She knew there was a ministry of some sort up there, among the streets. It’s where she first met the ladybug girl and where she got her training, on a mezzanine balcony.

Probably a safer bet if the door is still there, she had remembered there was a little door there, somewhere. If she could find it maybe she can get out in one piece.

She passed the shop entrances, shaorma shops, ice cream shop, eyeglasses shop. Only 3rd world countries still had need of glasses, everybody else had already embraced corrective crisping. She was definitely in an old city, she was looking into someone's past she concluded. Someone recently-ish dead, fortunately. She wondered how she would manage in caves instead of subways, in jungles instead of apartment blocks. She likes stairs, elevators and fast food shops.

Occasionally smells reminded her of old dreams, back when her dreams were not lucid, those were fun, she could remember her grandparents and favorite food. But these dreams were not her own, someone was invading her mind ever since she came across those poems, she should have never read them, she chastised herself. And she was lucky she only read one, the ladybug girl had told her. She wished she had told her more.

About halfway up the hill she recognized a street to her right and so she decided to take it, she remembered it being safe so she kept walking on it until she reached an alee intersection. The buildings were tall and there was a row of garages in front. She had never been there before and there was a man working on a vintage car there. It had rubber wheels touching the ground and a it was a bit box shaped, not very aerodynamic.

Looking around she tightened the her fists with anxiety inside her belly pouch and felt a paper crinkle in her hand. She immediately took it out with hope, and yes it was the text again and with the same numbers, 13:00. She looked at it intensely trying to memorize every squiggle.

The man noticed her, raised her hand at her and called out.

- Hei!

He started walking to her with a worried look on her face, as though he seemed to recognize her.

She woke up, her wrist watch was ringing and vibrating. She was still on the bus and the bus was about to close and return. She jumped out just in time.

After looking at the time she realized she was running late for work, but she had to write down the message. So she scrambled on the pavement to write what she could remember, as onlookers gave her a curious side glance. She looked like a lunatic but she didn’t care, she had done this before and pretended she was a poet, hit by inspiration when asked if she is ok. She had been lying for so long, she fancied herself a professional.

As she was running to work she wondered who the mechanic was, in her dream. He looked caucasian from a distance, but wasn’t sure. “Black hair, clean shaven, mid 30’s?”, she tried to remember every detail and she felt like maybe he was a translator, maybe he sent her the message, she had to find out.

When she reached the restaurant she was gasping for air, her lungs hurt, but she needed to compare the notes. Right then her supervisor entered the changing room.

- What’s the noise, are you ok? Did you run here? He asked in an irritated tone, he knew she was running late.

- Yes, sorry! I’m here, made it. She mumbled as she was putting on her yellow maid uniform.

- Good, take it easy, don’t die. I hate doing job interviews.

- Hey boss?!

- Yeah?

- Uhm, you are of african descent, right?

- Yeah among others, why?

The notes were pretty much the same, she had remembered pretty much everything so searching again wouldn’t lead any results, the bots wouldn’t give her any new results. And none of the guilds she looked in, none seriously bothered to help her, and she was too scared to check with a living professional translator lest the message was dubious, they may alert the police. The forums were anonymous and offered some cover, she preferred that.

Her heart was racing when she asked her supervisor.

- Can you tell me what this language is? I know you were born and raised here, but maybe you can read this. Some guy gave it to me, at the table the other day. I think he was hitting on me, looks like a hour...I think he was asking me on a date. The creep, haha. And she tried to look as natural as she could while telling the lie.

Her supervisor looked her in the eye and took the scrap of paper.

- Sorry about that, let’s see. Hmmm, looks like tamil, but I can’t read it. I only know japanese and chinese, some spanish and hindi. He rubbed his big belly with pride as he handed the paper back to her.

- Are you sure?! She said with a big smile.

- Yes I’m sure, my grandma grew up in Sri Lanka, she had books in tamil in her library, she used to read me stories from them before bed.

- Sri Lanka? But, that’s not in Africa, is it?

- No, it’s south of India. Why do you care? Don’t meet strange guys who give you messages you can’t read.

- What?! Pfff, no. I just thought he looked african, guess he was indian.

- Sri Lankans are not indian, don’t call them that or you won’t get a tip.

- Japanese don’t like to get tipped anyway.

- Be snarky on your own free time, I have work and so do you.

She gleefully put the note back in her pocket, “What luck! “, she thought to herself. Then settled down and started asking herself. “Why would I get a message in a language I don’t know, what’s the catch?”.

Later when nobody was looking she logged into her forum account from her work computer to tell SpaceCookie it was tamil and to find someone to translate since her scanned note couldn’t be translated by any of the websites she knew. “Is my handwriting that bad?”, she wondered and hoped if anyone could help her it would be Cookie.

Then a long wait started, she was very curious as to what the note said, “If it was a meeting who could it be?”. She wondered as she welcomed customers to their tables, if she had met the person before in the dream world or real life. Were they dangerous or not, she had so many questions.