feeling light

last night's dream was set in my college (st xaviers). but strangely, none of my college friends were present in the dream.

it was lunch hour. we were in the mess, which had wooden tables and benches that were pretty much unpainted, roughly cut planks on wooden legs. the plates were huge steel plates. everyone was there for the unlimited "thali" lunch, but i had carried my own tiffin, which was in those cheap plastic boxes that restaurants use to pack for home delivery.

the food they were serving looked very similar to what i recently ate at the "mahaprasad" at a temple in sajjangad, satara.

anyway, i was sitting at the the table with my school friend jude, and opposite me was my ex-manager tony. while the servers started making their way, spooning out rice and vegetables and khichdi and daal, i suddenly realized i needed to pee. so i excused myself, and for some reason, carried my lunch-box too.

i saw the restrooms right outside the mess, but for some reason i decided to go to the one on the lower floor. but then realized there wasn't one there. walked down two more floors, and found myself on the first floor. walked along the corridor along the length of that building, and then turned to the next. this one was an open corridor, and for some reason, the college walls were white stone instead of the grey i remember. the corridor was bustling with people walking either way. everyone was speaking loudly, and their voices added up to a crescendo. it somehow had a very happy, festive feel too... as if everyone was excited about something. that's when i bumped into cleona, who was walking the other way.

she noticed the lunchbox in my hand and asked if i was done with lunch. i told her i hadn't, and i'm not hungry any more. she reminded me i had just 10 minutes left of the lunch break, in case i changed my mind.

and at that moment, i did.

i turned around and started walking in the direction she was (back to the mess), but she had already hurried through the crowds and was impossible to spot.

that's when i looked upwards, and saw that at the end of the corridor (the end i had just passed on my way here), a crane was lifting a huge brass angel onto its mounting on the wall. the angel was huge, but then i realized so was everything else, and even though i was just on the first floor, it looked like the ground was 3 floors below me. and the 2 more floors of the building towered over me. and that's when i realized that space was strangely distorted, as everything looked normal when indoors (in fact, the ceiling of the mess and the height of the stairway seemed pretty low), but viewed from outside, everything was just super huge!

i raced back to the mess, and once i was back indoors things again seemed small. ran up the stairs, and then ran up an extra floor. the stairs ended in two corridors at right angles, one so low i couldn't even get in without stooping, and the other just about high enough for me.

i walked the entire length of the latter corridor, looking out at the 4-storey white walled building opposite, that looked well over 20 storeys high. it also looked very distant... basically everything outside looked like 5-10 times their expected size.

i reached the end of the corridor, and climbed up a very narrow wooden staircase, that opened onto the roof. one part of the roof was tiled and slightly sloping, and the rest was flat. a girl i didn't recognize was lying at the point where the sloping roof met the flat one. she was reading a book and smoking.

she told me the point where the tiled roof met the next building is an awesome place to sit and relax.

i walked along the roof, half crouched cos i was scared of the height.

and then i suddenly reached the end of the roof. there must have been atleast 100 feet of gap between this roof and the next building. the end came upon me so suddenly that i was literally at the edge. i looked down and realized how tiny i was. the wall stretched down as far as the eye could see.

i felt this light feeling that i get (even in real life), when i look down.

in fact, i can still feel the same light feeling as i type this.

the feeling that i'm weightless, and that i should jump.

(that's when i woke up with a start)