Nepenthe
December 5, 2007 - 6pm[This is based on a dream I had a few weeks ago. Most of it is my dream, almost verbatim. I left out a few distracting details, like someone handing the main character a derringer.
Inevitable dash of pretension: 'Nepenthe' is the drug of forgetfulness in Greek Mythology.]
We walked through a rather ordinary-looking sunlit atrium, and rounded the stairs up into the cloakroom of a large banquet hall.
My partner-in-training, Max, and I surveyed the room. It was brimming with people sitting in long rows of tables. I estimated about two hundred people. Despite the large number of people, the room was strangely quiet. A pall hung in the air, as if something was about to begin.
The far wall of the room seemed obscured by haze, though no one appeared to be smoking. It gave the room a distant, dreamlike quality. A small lounge sat near the entrance into banquet hall, with a bar, a few chairs, and an uncomfortable-looking couch. The lounge stood empty, and the bartender leaned against the bar with his chin on his fist. He glanced at us as we walked in, then resumed glaring off into space.
“This is it, huh?” Max asked casually. “Looks pretty ordinary to me.”
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© Marc Teale 2009.