A Low, Greasy Odor

In the dream, I took Ivanečka to visit Tony in a sort of limbo. It was not Austin, but a version of Austin existing suspended in a haze of tiny particles, partially shimmering, partially absorbing the greyish light. We arrived in some sort of topless vehicle. It appeared at first glance to be a narrow car with one seat for the driver and behind one seat for a passenger, but its sensation was that of a fleshy tube. Superficially, it had an illusion of antiquity, but my mind knew this was no antique place. I was to one side, looking down onto the “vehicle” and Tony was in the driver’s seat, looking back at Ivanečka. I told him This is my wife.

They wormed their way out of the “vehicle” and then he was ushering us into his domicile. Tony had changed dramatically from the last time I’d seen him in 2011. He wore a tank-top. He looked relatively “in-shape”. He had no gut. He wore a queasy mustache. His accent was a vague blend of latino and slav. I thought nothing of it. Time had passed, of course. I hadn’t realized yet that the particulate universe we inhabited was a limbo.

We were inside and his three children were, there, all sitting on the floor, except for perhaps Emilee, who was standing with a dumbstruck look on her face. They were all suspended in age, suspended perhaps in the ages I last knew them. Ginger, in specific, was a teen. She sat on the floor with her back to us, playing with some sort of children’s construction apparatus. Dull clanking could be heard. A low, greasy odor came from a closed room beyond and to the right.

Indicating Ivanečka, Tony said to me I’ll show her around. He stood at an elevator inside a recessed section of the wall. Brilliant, I replied and turned to do my own thing for a moment, though I don’t even know if in the dream I had any idea what doing my own thing could have consisted of.

I emerged from the state of doing my own thing and began to realize that Tony and Ivanečka had been gone quite a while. I began investigating. I started with the room that was the source of the low, greasy odor. Inside were three black women of indeterminate age, each in front of a bowl of gruel. The liquid of the gruel was moving, disturbed as if below their surfaces living things churned.

Finally, I simply decided to call Ivanečka, even though I realized that the call would be “roaming”, as this was certainly not the Czech Republic. It was certainly not Europe at all. Nor Austin for that matter. However, the phone call did go through. A man answered. I was dumbstruck. I asked Where is Ivanečka. He was silent for a bit and then replied she is sleeping, or something like that. The feeling that washed over me was immediate and overwhelming. It was a feeling of utter helplessness.

I quickly returned to the main room of the domicile. Tony was back. He had a large, rubberized flashlight in his hands. It took both of his hands to carry it. I stared at him, again dumbfounded. Where is Ivanečka? He simply stated She’s just a demon. I grabbed the closest thing I within my reach, also some sort of flashlight, a metal bludgeon. I started towards him, foamy with inchoate rage. Despite the two-handed burden he moments before held, he had snatched up a pair of scissors and then he was upon me, struggling to drive them into my chest.