Night Vision

I am in what looks to be some kind of large home improvement store, having travelled here to meet up with some people. It is a very large store: towards the back, the aisles actually turn into streets, which is where I need to go. I’ve been this way enough times to where I’ve got the route memorized, and when I reach the signpost with a number of street signs, I take a left onto Montaigne Street.

Montaigne street has a rather sleazy vibe, with a sort of over-the-top neon-over-historic-district aesthetic. But it seems completely confined to this particular street, and then it’s back into plain downtown area. However, something is strange: the street I’m looking for doesn’t seem to be here. This is an area full of little winding streets, so I look around for a bit to make sure I haven’t missed it, then head back out to where the store begins and go along Montaigne Street all over again. But the street really seems to have gone now.

I go back to the store area and browse the stationary near the front as I consider what to do next. Maybe I forgot to check something, and the meet-ups aren’t happening right now. It’s going to be a few hours before I head back, and I need to figure out what I’m going to do for dinner at some point. I also decide, in a moment of latent lucidity, that I’m going to change the name of Montaigne Street to Montero Street, as that seems to fit it better. In the end, I just decide to look around the store for a while longer.

Towards one corner, I find a series of furnished rooms. They’re a bit like display rooms you might actually find in a home improvement store showing off appliances or furnishings, only these ones seem to be set up as miniature haunted houses. I enter the room on the far end first, one that’s almost completely dark. This one seems to have a “pet ghost” theme. As I explore the various furniture and parts of the room, certain things happen, triggered by my presence, such as noises or motion, and even the visible ghosts of cats. But I don’t find the place scary at all. It’s actually rather relaxing. I lie on the bed in the corner for a while listening to things rustle and thinking about dead pets from times gone by.

After a while, I move on, going into a couple more rooms I can no longer remember before heading into what’s clearly set up as a haunted nursery. This room has a lot more light coming in, so it’s easy to see the furnishings, most prominently, a young child’s bed – not actually a crib, but something that seems made for children about that age, maybe from an earlier era. The bed is dishevelled, and there are several piles of feces either on it or on the floor nearby, hinting towards neglect. It doesn’t really look real and definitely doesn’t smell real.

As I examine a chest on the side of the room facing the store, I suddenly see a large group of ghosts standing together, looking in my direction. One of them, an older gentleman in a suit, gestures that I should come over to them. I do, and they lead me to a long table set up for a meal. It seems that the store has staffed their haunted rooms with real ghosts, and now that they’re off-duty, they’re closing up the rooms and inviting me to eat with them.

It’s only once were seated and the meal begins – tea and pastries – that they begin talking, or possibly that’s just when I become able to understand them. The older gentleman is seated on my left, and we have a conversation in which I distinctly remember telling him about my cat, Thomas, who died 12 years ago.

At some point, the scene changes – the implication seems to be that time has passed, and I’m travelling somewhere with three or four of them. One opens the back door of a black car, and another climbs in. I realize I’m supposed to get in as well. I notice I’m wearing a smooth black coat coming down somewhere between my knees and waist and a pair of black leather gloves.

The scene changes further after that to a completely new setting – and while the store, at least, was almost certainly located in the U.S., this place has more the vibe of a developing country, possibly in the Caribbean. The man showing me around takes me past an area where many small boats are docked. He seems to feel this is a touristy area, not really representative of the place itself.

At a clothing market, somebody comes up to him. It seems he’s needed somewhere immediately, so it looks like I’m going to be on my own for the next couple hours. We agree to meet back up here in that general timeframe – this doesn’t seem to be a place where people make appointments more precise than that.

15.7.21