Dead Lobsters and Playful Flowers

I wonder what, if anything, it's supposed to mean when one dreams of infestations of dead lobsters? They were just everywhere, I tell you--a monstrous blackened husk of a thing had draped itself over Snarling and Scratch, and another two had laid claim to the space above my monitor. A whole row of them had lined up atop Stella's cage, and when I ventured into the hallway, I saw a lifeless set of claws protruding from each of my sneakers. I was not happy to see them there. They weren't just sitting, see; they were lurking, in the most unsavoury way imaginable. They're going to start smelling, I thought, eyeing them up morosely--they'll start smelling, and they'll melt to my surfaces, and then I'll never be rid of them. I couldn't just throw them away, either. Their tails were crusted with loathsome bunches of eggs, and I didn't want to get any on my hands. I might have stared at them forever, but then Adolf Hitler set fire to the city again, so I had to jump in the harbour to avoid being incinerated.

In further news of the trivial, I have, in my quest for a fuzz-free nosebridge, Naired away a legitimate section of my right eyebrow. I have not yet decided whether to grit my teeth and wait for it to grow back, or to attempt to pluck my left brow into a similar form.

I shouldn't have gotten up this morning, I think. I surfaced from the lobster dream some time towards noon. Jerry Springer was on the telly. I like to watch Ripley's Believe it or Not as I drift off to sleep--I live for all that sort of thing--but the same channel that runs Ripley's at night turns into Rubbish Central during the days.

Right. Anyhow. Jerry Springer. I woke up, and Jerry Springer was on. Transsexuals were cheating on their gay prostitute boyfriends, or something similarly farfetched. I pressed the mute button, but I could still hear the ghosts of their voices. There's something wrong with my telly: when you stick it on mute, it doesn't go completely quiet. It just winds itself down to a dull murmur. I thought about sitting on the edge of the Niagara Gorge, or perhaps the Grand Canyon, and watching tiny trannies arguing hundreds of feet below. I realized I had a pounding headache, pulled a pillow over my head to shut out the Jer-ry! Jer-ry, and went back to the dream world. The lobsters were waiting.

Some hours later, when the light had gone out of the sky, I realized I was no longer asleep. The television was busily extolling the merits of an air freshener that's also a nightlight.

"That has to be the most disappointing product on earth," I told Stella. On the TV, a 3D-rendered flower had sprung from the nightlight, and was playfully flicking a wall-switch with a prehensile tendril. "I mean, I see this commercial, and I want that. I do. I want the nightlight with the flower growing out of it. But if I go to the Pharmasave and bring it home, there isn't any flower. I plug it in, and what happens? It stinks up my flat, and every so often the light comes on. Disappointing, see?"

"Skee?" said Stella, dubiously.

"So many ads like that," I wheezed, trying to sit up. "Candy bars that float in the air. Paint that leaps out of the can and--and not only floods your walls with a welcoming blush of terracotta, but gives you a fireplace and refinishes your countertops, to boot. Dancing money. Endearing insurance brokers (don't forget to honk when you drive by Vern Fonk!). Philters that turn your evil rat into your new best friend. Philters that turn your evil rat into your new best friend."

Stella stared blankly.

"You're not listening, are you?"

Stella stuck her face in her crotch.

"Forget you. You have no imagination. That's your whole problem: you can't even imagine yourself being nice. You, you'd buy the crappy nightlight thingy, and you'd stick it in your wall, and that'd be the last you'd think of it till the scented oil ran out. It would never occur to you to tap on it and marvel at the cheapness of the plastic casing, or to sniff at it and reflect on how it doesn't make a whit of difference whether you get Spring Breeze or Citrus Squeeze or Pine Dream--they all smell the bloody same. If someone said 'Hey, Stella, did you see the commercial for those, with the flowers growing out of them? Wouldn't it be brilliant if...if, you know, they really did?'--if someone said that, you'd wrinkle up your nose and go 'What? You say the strangest things, sometimes. Who would buy something like that?'"

Stella uncrotched her face, and began an intensive lickover of her left forepaw.

"Wouldn't you like a disposable wipe (which softens and enriches your skin with magic exploding bubbles) for that?" I asked her.

"Frnt." She made a consonant noise at me, half a peep. I think it meant something along the lines of "Shut up."

"All right," I mumbled. "I'll stop--but only because I don't have a point. Don't be thinking I like you, or anything, or care about your feelings."

Stella turned her back on me. I went back to sleep. The lobsters were still there, with their antennae hanging down. I stared at them. Their lifeless eyesockets stared back. Not fair, I thought. Dead folks in staring contests--not fair.

I'm still tired, even after all that sleep. I'm not even sitting in my chair, writing this--I'm more lying in it, curled up in an absurd position, with both my knees resting on my left shoulder. Come to think of it, I'm nodding off as I type. I think I'll go and see if Ripley's is coming on soon, so I can have something nice to see me back to the dream world. Maybe if there aren't any bad ads or cheating transsexuals, there won't be any lobsters.

(I think this lethargy is a good sign--I often spend a lot of time sleeping while my health is on the mend. Perhaps I'll be full of energy next week. That would be nice. I'd like to go on a couple of small excursions before the winter weather descends in earnest.)