Tag: wealthy

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Dream Journal

Next Door, A Fancy Pool I Treat like my Own

I’ve been living in a dingy apartment that used to be a motel. One nice thing about living here is that I have a view of the large pools at the fancy place next door, and I know how to sneak in whenever I want. However, the fancy place’s new owners have started paying for updates that actually detract from the beauty and usefulness of the pool for me. I’d rather it be old and enjoyable than new-looking and ugly. One day I’m lounging against the side of the pool and realized they’ve installed speakers that play easy-listening garbage. Without waiting I reach up and break off the speaker nearest me — realizing it’s better than planning it out and appearing suspicious.

I’m hanging out near the boundary of the property where there is a waist-high fence; I’m thinking about how it will still be easy to get in whenever I want even if they start locking the tiny gate. Chris P., a Cambodian childhood friend of mine, and two of his entourage arrive through the gate. He’s some important manager or boss of the place, which makes things perhaps more complicated or perhaps easier for me. We have a brief conversation joking about whether I’m hacking the power grid of the pool, like a famous incident in the history of Bermuda. Luckily, of all the liberties I’ve taken with this overly-wealthy next door property, that isn’t one of them.

Categories
Dream Journal

Private Property: Several Absurd Scenarios

In the hinterlands far out in Nevada, rich citizens build a pair of eccentric mansions right next to each other. These private residences resemble city apartment blocks in their scale, shape, and modernist aesthetic. Yet a lone high-end car is usually all that can be seen on the miles-long public access road that links out to them (essentially just a private drive), crossing a sandy ridge which obscures them from eyeline. The buildings belong to a pair of relatives who still don’t often see each other, a father & son or perhaps an uncle and nephew, yet though the twin properties are huge the structures are built in a small corner practically touching, with the absurd addition of a tall wall between them blocking a direct view.

Zooming in on a map of islands in the Pacific, and it appears that one has been completely bought and taken over, now labelled “twitter.com”. I realize the islands are a bit further north than I though, and the the round bad in the middle of the grayscale topological map is the Hawaiian island of Molokai.

Participating in a reenactment of the Titanic sinking, I remember the 1997 movie and position myself near the middle. When the ship keels into the air, I hope to survive the split by minimizing the distance I drop. I do, but things have gone a bit differently and it’s the forward half that stays afloat. Long enough, as it happens, that its momentum carries it within swimming distance of the shore of a small private island (owned by the musician Sting, in fact). The ship effectively pulls aside it. I spot a few Mexican dudes hanging out playing cards, listening to ranchero music. It’s oddly domestic enough that even on our sinking vessel we passengers hesitate to jump in the water and interrupt their day.