Two; Weird Dreams

There is a chance I might be losing my mind.

I had a dream last night.

It was of those dreams that leaves you feeling uncomfortable when you wake up. I'm sure you've had them, you see something that isn't quite right, but of course you can't pin point why it isn't quite right.

It might be an everyday object, something you've seen a thousand times before, but for some reason in your dream it just doesn't feel right. And when you get up, you can't stop thinking about it.

I dreamt of a door.

It wasn't my door. Neither the one to my old unit or my new apartment. There was nothing unusual about it, it was just a door standing slightly ajar, it had three metal numbers stuck it, though I couldn’t remember what the numbers were, some of the paint was peeling off, there was a metal door handle and a keyhole.

At first I thought it was just my mind playing games with me. The excitement of the last few days combined with the usual problem of getting to sleep in a new place. I woke up about a dozen times with the image of this damn door in my head, and when I finally got up this morning, with a stiff back and a crook neck, I couldn't shake the door from my mind.

Once I was up I looked at my pitiful surrounds and decided to go out and get some supplies. A few essentials, bread, milk, a frying pan, the racing guide, that sort of thing.

I left the apartment. I'm living in a complex so there are dozens of other people around, and I could hear some of them talking at the bottom of the stairs to the main entrance. I wasn't feeling particularly sociable, so rather than face them and go through the whole 'welcome neighbour' routine I snuck down the back stairs to the underground garage.

I was planning to go through the garage, up the ramp and over the road to the shops. Everything was going well too, I'd avoided the new neighbours, I was starting to feel a little bit more relaxed in my new surroundings, and I'd just about shaken that damn dream from my mind when I saw it.

The door. The one from my dream.

In the corner of the communal garage in an area I had no business even looking at. It was standing slightly open, just as it had in the dream, there were three metal numbers stuck to it. Four, two, seven.

I told myself I must have seen it when they showed me around the place before I moved in, and for a moment I believed the lie. I even laughed at the damn thing, happy to have solved the dream mystery. I was almost out of the garage when I realised I had never been down to the garage before. There was no way I could have seen that door and then dreamt about it.

Chapter Three