Delusion and Dream
Background: I went to Montreal last week to graduate from McGill, pack my belongings, stuff them in the car, and then take naps in the backseat as dad, and sometimes mum, drove back down to Reston, Virginia.
In Reston once again, my training at Obi Sushi continues. When I finish training I take a test, and then officially become a watiress. In Dreamland, however, things are far less straightforward.........
It is graduation day. The students, sprawled inside an enormous labyrinth of hidden hallways, bounce off of each other like ants in an attempt to surmise the suggested relational arrangement of their bodies. I’m not there yet. I’m always late for everything. I await graduation in Allan Hepburn’s dimly lit apartment, which is identical to my grandmother’s apartment in Sofia, Bulgaria. I later note to my roommate how peculiar it is that Allan Hepburn lives in the same apartment buildings and has the same floor plans as my grandmother in both Bulgaria and Montreal. (In “real life” my grandmother has never been to Montreal and I would doubt that Allan Hepburn has an apartment in Sofia.)
Allan Hepburn has taken over my grandmother’s apartment and now he sits there plotting his scheme. He intends to sabotage graduation and has chosen Wes Folkerth as his accomplice. Wes Folkerth plays a character from a Shakespearean comedy. At heart, Folkerth is forever young. Folkerth is the Trickster figure. He means no harm; he only wishes to remain animated. He crouches underneath Hepburn’s window sill, awaiting the mastermind’s instructions.
Back in convocation hall, I emerge in my prom dress, on top of which I plan to put on my black gown. My old high school friend, Emily Howard, surfaces from a wormhole and recognizes my prom dress. She too is graduating, but in a fiery red gown--the color of my dress. All at once a deluge of graduates in red gowns storm down the hallway. My gown is black. Allan Hepburn is a genius.
At my grandmother’s apartment, I stand face to face with Hepburn as he acknowledges that the dignity of undergraduates should be respected after all. “I’ve always sided with the students,” he insists.
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Postscript: In “real life” Allan Hepburn is in fact highly supportive of his students. Although I never developed much of a relationship with him, he lent me a book that I desperately needed in order to finish my honours thesis this past April.