A nose for noise

Life is but a dream, sh-boom, sh-boom.

Life is but a dream, sh-boom, sh-boom.

I’ve been dossing down in the guest bedroom for the past few nights while I try to shake this bug (hack, cough, ptui, repeat) and last night I was dreaming that I was in some concrete condo/apartment house shithole, the prototypical American multifamily dwelling pioneered by the East Germans, a cheerless vertical warehouse with all the charm of a Stasi penitentiary for political offenders.

In the dream, as in “real life,” I couldn’t quite drift off to a proper sleep. I kept hearing this repetitive sound that was driving me batshit: Pok. Pok. Pok. Sounded like someone bouncing a tennis ball off a concrete wall or floor, over and over again.

Pok. Pok. Pok. Etc.

In both planes of consciousness it had been days since I last enjoyed a solid night’s sleep. And in the dream I was starting to get seriously pissed off because for the first time in a good long while I wasn’t enduring any coughing fits and thus nothing should have been keeping me awake.

Pok. Pok. Pok. Etc.

I couldn’t localize the sound — inside my apartment, upstairs, downstairs, in the hallway — and I was on the edge of bounding out of bed to get medieval on someone’s ass, as soon as I got a fix on where the fuck was it that they were.

Pok. Pok. Pok. Etc.

And then I woke up to find that the sound — Pok. Pok. Pok. Etc. — was my own nasal exhalations bouncing off the sheet and blankets, which I had tugged over my head.

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2 Responses to “A nose for noise”

  1. Pat O'Brien Says:

    You need a nice long vacation. Preferably a road trip with no itinerary. ” A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” Tao te Ching by Stephen Mitchell, the Swiss Army Knife of philosophy.

  2. Libby Says:

    I’ve been having weird dreams, too. For three weeks. Nightmares. And I’m not sick. Get better, Patrick!

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