The Mouse Party Dream [1997]

[Written early on 19 March 1997 about a dream I’d had 17/18 March.]

I

 dreamed about mice in my room. My brother and I were watching them run about on the molding towards the top of the room. Flame [the cat] ignored them. There were three mice, two of them quite large. My brother said I should watch where they went, and they went into a hole in my ceiling. My brother said we should block it up; that’s where the heat was escaping to. I went up into the attic to find that the mice had really taken over up there; it was like a goddamn mouse party. There was oatmeal all over a sort of table like our old train table, and there were meal­worms in it, and the mice were munching on them like party treats. I got the hell out of there, and when I got back down from the attic my brother was talking to our father my father’s room. He had his beeper and was working on some plans for the television sta­tion. I said to him “I’m sure glad you’re back,” and he told me, “I’m not back really. You can’t come back from the dead.”