No mail

It was the start of the semester, the second or third class of the first week. I walked into the classroom with a backpack full of books and CDs, which I thought would increase my cred with students. I hadn’t brought anything related to the class, as I realized when I looked through the backpack. Several students gathered at my desk to look at the CDs. And I thought to myself: what was I going to assign? A student whom I knew from a previous class asked me to explain something in “the book” — not a book for our class, just some book. I looked at the page and explained it, and she thanked me.

Then I went to check my mail. The mailboxes had been reorganized into three rows from six, and the first row now began with the end of the alphabet. Where was my name? “You don’t work here anymore,” a colleague told me. That’s right, I thought. I’m retired, but I’m still teaching, so there could at least be a mailbox for me. I recognized another colleague in the hallway. He had lost an enormous amount of weight and was nearly bald, but still, I recognized him, or thought I did. I felt that I was taking a chance when I addressed him by name. He too was retired but still teaching, so I asked him if he knew where I could find my mail. He showed me a drawer under the mailboxes. But it was filled with Band-Aids: no mail.

It was now 5:30, and I walked through the hallways looking for someone else to ask. I saw no one, though many of the offices had the door open and lights on. I thought about how strange it might feel to all at once see someone in what appeared to be an empty well-lit building.

[This is the thirteenth teaching-related dream I’ve had since retiring. Not one has gone well. The others: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12.]