Getting to Work on Time

Date: 11/5/2022

In a new Dream House: European old Town brownstone with wide windows letting city sites in. Feels simple and impersonal as a vacation cottage, but full of sad memories, a mother loved, now gone. I am not their Mom, just a stand-in. I wave to the kids from the window on their way to school. They got ready by themselves. I am a guest here. But the little ones smile big up at me for they have not had someone wave from the window for a very long time. I am going in to work today and G is going to give me a ride. He is in the garage waiting. It's 8:40, just enough time. But I am crossing the tracks in the backyard and the grass is so long. Each step takes minutes. The train is coming and I'm knee deep in soft grass. I finally pull away from the tracks as the train thunders by. I realize I am in a grazing field surrounded by deer-like creatures only larger and with giant curls of horns. They are running and banging horns with each other. I should hide and get back. I walk along the bottom of a steep trench that separates the fields. It is impossible to climb the steep slope out but I come to a grainery with a barred wall that I can climb. It is very high and the spaces between the bars are tiny, but I manage to climb until I'm even with a window where I can see workers passing by. I call out to an old couple to help me out but the man says he must ask the police first to make sure I am safe. So rather than wait, I ask a younger man who grabs my knapsack first, then helps me over the gap between the grainery wall and the street. It is now 10 to 9 and I go to my room to dress for work. I am putting on white, summery overalls, very thin, and then a navy shirt with coloured, striped sleeves under it. Feels snug but will have to do. G has already left without me and I'm going to be late. Then I realize I work from home, so I am right on time.