Grandpa's Old Newspaper Press Factory

Date: 11/13/2016

I woke up in a dusty old apartment, three floors up. It was on an old brick street. My mother lived with me... or I with her. I am not sure. We got up for work. I walked her to work each morning. As we got down to the street outside the apartment building I slowly realized I was in some foreign area. There were lots of Jewish immigrants that spoke with a heavy accent. As we walked to my mothers work we stopped in a higher end clothing and jewelry store. I said my hellos to my friends there and told them I would be back after dropping off my mother. We continued to walk, passing a train station and a small street market. We finally came to a run down wooden barn type building. There was no glass in the windows and as you walked in the large wooden doors, you found yourself at the top of a balcony looking down into a muggy printing factory. There was a large newspaper printing machine that reached from the top balcony/entrance area all the way to the floor right next to the stair case. My mother went down the stair case getting ready to begin another day at work. I looked up at an old loft that I used to play in when I was younger. My Poppy and used to spin pottery in that loft when I was a child, I remembered. Sometimes I would just watch and play with my dolls as he worked the clay. I stared at the staircase and then looked back at the printing machine... and then down I slid across the wooden slated machine ripping papers down with me. All of a sudden an older dark haired woman started screaming at me in Italian. I had no idea what she was saying but I can only assume she was cussing me out. Then my grandfather appeared. He began yelling at me too, cussing, and insisting that there was no playing in the factory. I yelled back... he hadnt been there much since Nana passed away. I yelled and cried that he and I used to play all the time... and then my mother stepped in and commanded me to go get dressed for work. I wiped the snot from my nose and walked to a dusty table full of suitcases that my mother had been pointing to when she very firmly told me to "GO." I began to scuffle through the suitcases finding nothing that fit me since I recently lost weight. I tossed clothes on and off until finally I Iooked at the clock and decided I was much to late to go into work today anyway. Then all of a sudden I hear giggling behind the tables. There were two young girls playing with my old dolls. I sat down to play with them and then all of a sudden my Poppy comes over and begins to yell again... reiterating that there is NO playing in the factory. The dream flashes forward about 10 years and I wake up in the loft along side my own children. They are already awake and playing with dolls. I step out and look down into the silent factory area. My children hug me around my legs.