The dreams came to me in quick succession late today morning.

It was really time to get up and go to work, the alarm had rung and been duly put to snooze several times already.  I like to cling on to these last dregs of sleep, and pretend that I have no care or responsibility in the world.  It is my own private indulgence.  Summer work hours are very flexible anyway.  No more brats to educate. I like summer.  Summer in Florida with its baking heat, that reminds me of home, the bright sunny haze every time I go out, there's a certain energy and spark in the air, that I  relish  almost sensually.  Like I do with sleep. Or the last dregs of it. I hate people who complain of the heat.  I hate people who complain. I hate people. As persons they are ok, sometimes even attractive, but as people - I never get along with them when they are being people!

Today's dreams came with almost manic energy, that seemed to exhaust me even while lying still. First I was on a rickety Russian rocket that somehow chose to fly parallel to the ground after taking off.  Baikonour Cosmodrome, Kazakh steppes, rocket flying low and horizontal like a B2 bomber, the captain speaking his strange rolling tongue, rocket-shaped craft bobbing up and down , and I find myself in a reality TV show with a cousin I haven't seen for some years.  She has transformed from a quiet, shy person to a television  glam doll in a pink saree. The pet tortoise I have been planning to have for months now, crawls up to me, sticks its neck out from its box-like shell with square greenish mosaic shapes on it, looks at me accusingly for not owning it yet. Then transforms into a bawling baby that I promptly run away from.  I walk around the aisles of my old college hostel, conscious of the long shadows I was throwing, adjusting my walk so  I could fit the shadows to the tiling lines in the floor. Keeping close to the walls makes me feel more secure.  Back in nursery school  I was afraid of walking alone. It always felt like someone was following me from behind - maybe a strange bearded man with a large sack in which he held abducted little kids captive. Sometimes I would be saved by the long shadows which made me feel bigger and more mysterious that I really was. These days it's only while dreaming and writing that I do not feel like a sly wolf on the hunt. When was the last time I noticed my own shadow?