Doorbell

Night. We were watching TV downstairs. All the lights were off upstairs. 11:30: the doorbell rang. What? We walked upstairs together, turned on the porch light, and opened the inside door. A boy stood on the other side of the storm door, three feet tall, roundish, wearing a mask. Elaine said that his parents had locked him out of the house because he hadn’t done his math homework. “Do you want us to call the police for you?” I asked. “No,” he said. “Okay,” I said, and we closed the door.

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All OCA dream posts (Pinboard)

[Likely sources: While on a walk last week, we found a boy, maybe two years old, alone in a driveway, wearing only a diaper, standing next to a pickup truck. His hands were filthy from the tires. We rang the bell and the boy’s mother came to the door: “His dad was in the truck.” Also: watching Dead of Night (1945), in which the arrival of an unexpected guest is a plot element. This dream doesn’t show me in a kindly light. In waking life I would open the door.]