I was at home in a house I lived in around the late 80’s. It was a small adobe structure that was very old, and was once the home of the local governor in the early 1900s. It had been modernized at some point, and had plastic and metal conduits along the walls leading to surface-mounted light switches and hanging lightbulbs. There were only a few rooms in the place. The front entrance was a built-in porch, meaning it was part of the house structure and not a porch added to the building. The main room was cozy and big enough for a small family to sit and relax, and had a tin stamped pattern ceiling. A small dining area was beyond that, with barely enough room for a medium-sized table for six. Further back was the kitchen and a tiny washroom, which had a tiny two-bin portable clothes washer. Past that was the door leading to the back yard. If you were looking in from the front door all that was in line on the left side of the building. On the right was a doorway leading to a hallway that connected the main bedroom in the front right corner of the building, the bathroom, and a servant quarters room in the back. There was a door in the back of the servant quarters leading out to the back yard. The yard was large, easily 10 times the size of the house. In front was a large lawn which wrapped around the left side of the building and extended past the back corner. There were large trees in the front providing lots of shade. A small chain link fence covered in vines and shrubs separated the yard from the sidewalk and street beyond. To the right of the front of the house was the entrance driveway, which ran from a chain-link gate to back yard. Past that, more to the right, was a small garden area, possibly for flowers of small crops. The driveway led straight back to a small garage, all by itself by some trees. It was only wide enough for a single vehicle, but was long enough to park two inside front-to-back … if the room wasn’t taken up by boxes and cabinets and rugs and assorted materials. The driveway also branched to the left and around the back of the house. There was an irrigation canal dug into the middle of the yard, on the left side, coming from a thick row of trees, and marked the division between the grass on the side and the back yard proper. The rest of the yard in back was undeveloped, just a dirt lot, though all indications were that it was probably a miniature farm that used irrigation flooding. It was possibly larger in the distant past, but was now cut off by a tall chain link fence a short distance past the back end of the garage.
I was in the living area, looking out the front windows. It was dark inside but bright outside. I noticed someone moving and opened the door and went onto the porch. Then I opened the outer door and stepped to the lawn. The someone was at the small gate at the end of the little path leading from the front door to the street. They were standing on the sidewalk and leaning comfortably towards me. I must have missed something in a momentary daydream, because when I realized the person was talking they were in the middle or their thoughts. There were talking about the stones that made up the path leading from the gate to the front steps. I looked down at them. They were regular square pieces of reddish flat stone. Instead of forming and orderly path they were somewhat disarranged and spaced randomly. I reached down and started to move them around, trying to put them in order to make a path two squares wide that was straight. I found that the stones were all different sized and some were even not square, but in odd, random shapes. I gave up for a moment and went inside. There were more stones inside I could possibly use for reference. The floor of the main room was all red stone tiles, and they were the same size and shape as the stones outside, at least the stones I thought were outside at first, the square stones that should have been easy to put into order. I went back out to the front lawn. This time a small, scraggly, tan dog followed me out. I started to move the stones around again, intent on making them fit together correctly, orderly, in a neat double-row. Then the tops of the stones started to pop off in my hands. The pieces were clear like glass, but dimpled so they weren’t fully transparent. They were square and were supposedly some kind of glaze over the tops of the stones to make them look shiny. I couldn’t seem to match them back up to the stones and was worried they were fragile, as if they were perhaps made of ice. Fortunately, they seemed to be just as strong as the stones.
I give up and head back inside, with the little dog following close behind me. Mother is in the living area and walks to the main bedroom. I follow behind and tell her about the little brown dog that is following me. I flop out on the bed, which is unmade, white sheets rumpled everywhere, and ask her if the dog is hers. She’s sitting on a small stool, or on the edge of the bed, I’m not sure which. She tells me she doesn’t remember any small dogs at all, while she is doing something else, perhaps brushing her hair. The small dog jumps onto the bed where I am and sniffs around the mountains of bedsheets. I begrudgingly get up from the comfortable spot I was laying. I have to get myself ready because I have to drive in to the city, about an hour drive away. I’m not late, but I really should get myself ready to go.
I walk out of the bedroom and into the hallway, but the house has changed. That part is now part of a home I lived in during the mid-90s, with a long hallway on the right and two bedrooms on the left, with a small guest bathroom at the end of the hallway. I hear voices and shuffling. They are members of my family, step-brothers and their children. They are all in the guest bathroom and spilling out into the hallway as they try to all use the room to wash up at the same time. Oddly, they are all wearing different style of clothing that are all patterned in black and white. I hesitate. I don’t want to socialize with them, and they don’t want to socialize with me, either. I managed to get past them and into the last room, technically my room, since that is where I had been staying when I lived in the place. It is a little dark in the room, not quite gloomy. The huge windows at the end of the room give enough light even with the vertical blinds closed. I just wait there with the door closed until I stop hearing the sounds coming from the hall and bathroom. I wait a moment longer. No sounds. They are done. I expect the worst, I’ve seen it before. They will use the room but break everything. The last time they had broken the sink and the entire bottom cabinet was gone from under it, including the plumbing, so there was nowhere for water to drain to other than the floor. They had also broken the toilet and clogged it badly, and left if clogged and disgusting. I expected the same this time. I open the door and go out into the hallway.
Except I’m actually outside. It is sunny and I am standing beside a brown and red building. I think the sides were wood boards. There are trees and a dirt path that I am standing on. I look at the building as I stand next to it. It is tall, and there is a strange circular section along the wall. If it were a full circle it probably would have been more than 10m in diameter. Almost half of it was below ground, though. I could hear the sound of water, like you would hear in a small stream that was running over rocks. I suddenly remember that circular thing in the building is a waterwheel, and for the most part it almost looks like a side-mounted paddle wheel on a riverboat, complete with riverboat. There are large levers on a podium-looking projection sticking out from the wall. I select one of the largest and pull on it. It easily slides into position and clunk with a notch-like, metallic sound. The water wheel begins to move, barely at first, turning slowly but picking up speed. I step back and admire it. The spokes of the wheel are apparent, now that I am further back They are wood and painted red, and densely packed together in multiple rows, so dense that I can’t actually see through to the other side of them. A loud metallic clang and thunk startles me. A few seconds later there is the same clang and thunk noise. I realize that now that the wheel has gained speed, it’s triggered some kind of piston assembly, like for a steam engine. The noise I hear are the valves opening and closing, and the piston moving. The sounds continue, gaining speed until there is only about a second between each cycle. Then, abruptly and silently, it all slows to a stop. It has completed what I had started by pulling the lever – to pressurize the water for the house.
I walk to the door I had come out of and go back in, to find myself in the hallway just outside the guest bathroom. I am dismayed, but not surprised. The bathroom is a complete mess just as expected. The toilet is unflushed and full of white things. The things are also all over the floor and it looks like either the toilet overflowed or the shower was aimed out onto the floor. Everything is wet. The shower itself is full of dark grime. I ignore the sink and the mirror above it. Thankfully, the white things all over the floor and in the toilet are not feces, but some kind of globs of silicone adhesive, or some kind of foam adhesive. I know for certain because there are bags of it stacked by the shower, sort of behind the toilet and out of the water that’s on everything. The bags are like bags of powdered cement. The top one seems torn. Still, I need to get ready, I need a shower badly. I’ll just quickly shower and try not to step on anything and just get out of there as quickly as possible. I turn the shower on and the water sprays straight out onto the floor. Some splashes onto the bags before I can shut the shower. I wipe the water off the bag in hopes that it doesn’t soak in and ruin the contents, and end up getting the white adhesive stuff all over my hand. All I can say is “Ewwwwwwww” and try to wash it off, in the sink. It seems fairly waterproof and smears on my hand instead of washing off in the stream of water.
