Corridor

There I am again, moving down corridors somewhere unknown, although it may be the Building and I may be trying to make my way to the tenth floor, like so many times. Or perhaps I'm coming back from it and trying to find my way out on to the street. At this point I don't know; I can only plod on, open ever new door and hatch that appears in my way, follow the many twists and turns down the corridors and hope they take me somewhere. There are side doors but I feel I ought not to try those. I give in and open one of those: a service pit or well, metal stairways or ladders as far up and down as I can see, as well as valves and tube joints letting off a sort of steam. It is dizzying and does not appear to offer a better possibility of getting out of here than the corridors.

Another hatch which opens only with some effort then clunks and puffs open with a sigh. Beyond, the corridor splits into many corridors. No way to tell one from another or which can get me out of here. If this is a dream, I tell myself, this is a good moment to try and wake up.

fuse

I had been doing something upstairs for quite a long time. ‘Upstairs’ was my old house in Catia, the one I grew up with. I came downstairs into my Granddad’s kitchen to .. make coffee, I think. The hub was very hot, couldn’t touch it, there was a pan with something already black on it. I had a glass semi-hidden up a pipe that ran outside a wall; it wasn’t clear to me why I had hidden the glass but I think I didn’t trust the other occupants of the house to clean the crockery properly. There was another glass in the place where I’d put mine, but one that was very dirty. Needed to get the hub going but it wouldn’t start. Then I realised it was very dark. Flicking the light switch on wasn’t easy, it was very hard to push -and it didn’t do anything, no lights came up. Came out of the kitchen, realising this was a house-wide problem, maybe the cooker had been left on for a very long time and had made the fuses blow. I called out even though I knew my granddad wasn’t in the house. It was darker now and getting very very cold and I had no idea where the fusebox was (it would be fuses, 1940s style, not breakers) and getting so dark that I couldn’t negotiate my way through the furniture strewn along the corridor.. Then the bell started tolling in the distance...