I’m running in wide long carpeted corridors. The place is gigantic. I am in America, this is certain. The mix of people I see however is strange. Clusters of students carrying books, wealthy looking elderly people in formal dress.
Even a whole burlesque party, progressing slowly through a massive hall, women laughing loudly at men’s jests and waving colourful feather boas. I slithered among them in a hurry. I reached three sets of double wooden doors leading to a bigger area. A dead end it seemed. I doubled back, paused.
High-heel shoes, glittering slender naked body, small firm breasts, she wore a costume made of golden silk and rhinestones, two fine chains of gold crossed her chest and rippled on her shoulders. Two people at her sides hold her graceful hands. “Make way!” one of them said. “Make way! The artist needs to prepare for the performance!” She seemed absent; is she there of her own will? Not my business, I must be running again.
More corridors. Marble halls and wooden intricate staircases. More young people in groups, dressed in everyday clothes. I’ll take a left here, it has to be this way.
“Are you the seven-bell Dane?” a young man asks behind me. I slow down, turn to him, frown and tilt my head. Seven-bell? I have no idea what he’s talking about. I tell him in my mind. I am in such a rush, can’t he see that? He continues unsure, “Err, are you… Dane?” Already he’s raising a hand in an apologetic gesture and turns away. I’m half French half Italian and I’m lost, dammit!
I take a left, running –I’m so late by now. The hallway leads me to a velvet padded lecture hall. An elegant old woman comes forward. “Are you lost, child?” In my mind I tell her I left all my things in a meeting room and I’ve been running like crazy for too long to find it again. I don’t know where I am, which room I left. I don’t even know where to start. Purple velvet –what is this room? “Sorry, I’ve got to go!” I jumped in what had become a thirty-feet purple velvety cliff. I dived in little gravity, bounced off a purple cushion at an angle, kicked at another one and landed at the bottom.
