I'm in Redwood City, California, near Bayshore and Whipple, where a long dead-end street used to be. It's shorter now, but still has the turn-around at the end. Only now, even pedestrians must do it--go round a loop that's called "Old And In The Way".

I obey the sign--walk to the end, turn round and head pointlessly back toward the main road. Pass a huddle of teenage girls. They look up at me and I recognize two: my sister Miriel, and her friend Ariane! They're both younger than they were... Ariane is stunningly beautiful. I wish I could stop and talk to her. But I have to go on--a crisis is developing and I'm in danger.

The lane forces me into a secret passage behind a hearth of brick and stone. The passage splits; one VERY narrow branch slips behind the flue. It's barely passable even for skinny little me, sideways, exhaling. The other's much wider (though still narrow, a squeeze for a normal person). I know the passages meet on the far side of the fireplace, so I take the wider one--it's bad enough.

Behind me, the light suddenly cuts off, as someone follows me in. No. Some THING. Shadowy tentacles grope at me. It's a hostile alien! I've heard it's been asking about me, looking for me. It's caught up at last. I have a knife, but I don't really know how to use it. Dead end ahead. It's trapped me here in this dim tomb!

But I go round to the back mouth of the narrow passage and lure the alien in after me. It's wider than I am, struggles to get at me. I slash at tentacles and squeeze into the narrow return passage. If I can lure it in, it may get stuck, and even if not, to chase me it'll have to leave the front door unguarded. I could even get behind it and attack--could pin and kill it. I'll never get a better chance.

Suddenly see I'm ENJOYING this fight, despite my fear: the creature's been stalking me for some time, and I've felt angry but helpless; now is the first time I have a chance to pay it back.

I almost regret that our fight will be restricted to a narrow range, one or two tentacles. Even if it's riskier, I almost want to fight it in the open where I too could go all out.

But I should keep my tactical advantage; with the monster wedged, I may just end this war today.

NOTES NEXT MORNING

• Whipple is the freeway exit for Kaiser Clinic, where we went when ill--so it means sickness to me.
• Old And In the Way = a 1970s folk band = I fear younger women I like will reject me as too old or ugly.
• Girls = probably the blonde girl I got shy around and couldn't talk to, today.
• Dead end = the dead end of being convinced attractive women won't want me.
• Ariane = love, beauty (I had a crush on her as a kid)--and LOSS? Her dad died in an accident in front of their house. Also, she was highly psychic as a kid, so she may mean psychic dreaming.
• When I turn around, I face loneliness and sexual longing--and then a monster. What?
• Hearth = heart. The passages looping around the hearth echo the aorta, and also that turn-around outside. A message? You have to go deep into something to turn it around and get clear of it at last...
• Anger, monster I can fight at last = Lately I've had a lot of flashbacks to being a taunted outcast in school. Flashes of anger... I've been snappish.
• ACTION: don't condemn myself for angry fantasies right now. I'm reliving my childhood abuse for a reason...

One year after the dream, my father was abruptly paralyzed by a rare virus, and entered this hospital, and died there.

Ariane lost her dad suddenly, as I'd lose mine a year later. She may have been a warning the dream was precognitive, a foreshadowing of what was coming.

And the constricted passages and the life-and-death struggle now seem painfully obvious, as I remember what my dad suffered, struggling to breathe...

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