Another Dreary Party

Hello, dream blog! I missed you, you know.

Point of fact, I dreamed this maybe two weeks ago. Things then came up, and this is the first real chance I've had to write it out. Also, I forgot it a bunch of times. The dream:

Yet again, this dream starts out at a party. A very ill-defined party at that, too. There's sort of a general "friend's house party" atmosphere in roughly half of the rooms I visit, while the other half have a "high society 1920's party" vibe to them. Also, there is a classical quartet playing strings music somewhere in the building in which the party is being held, but I can't find it. Oh, and the building itself where the party is being hosted is huge. It's a mansion. I think that I subconsciously based it off my friend's ex-girlfriend's house in Richmond Hill (Thorn Hill?) where I attended one New Year's party, then mentally added in a bunch of staircases from an M.C. Escher painting. Bizarre.

Anyways, the party is filled with my friends, some elderly relatives of mine, and the cast of HBO's Rome, in character, except that while they look and act exactly like their characters in the show, they are also the Montagues and the Capulets from Romeo and Juliet. That's not too much of a stretch, really; the Julii and the Junii of the show had the whole "Shakespearean Grudge Match" deal going on anyone, so it's not too much of a stretch to put them in those roles. But I digress.

My own role at the party is less clear. I wear a tuxedo and carry snack foods to people, but I don't feel as though I'm a waiter, as I also drink, talk with other guests, etc. Also, I don't really seem to receive this food from any concrete process; it just appears in my hand and I distribute it to people. Anyways, the main two people I keep coming back to on my food rounds are Rome's Atia of the Julii and Servillia of the Junii (rivals in the show; Montagues/Capulets in my dream), who inform me of their respective plans to poison the food of their respective opposites. I nod politely.

My elderly uncle Larry (actually my great-uncle, but I have never referred to him as "great-uncle Larry") is also there, looking MUCH more frail then in my waking life. In reality, he is a somewhat frail octogenarian with failing eyesight, but is still strong and self-sufficient. In my dream, he looks twice as frail and is confined to a wheelchair which must be pushed by a nurse. I make several attempts at conversation, but his hearing is also apparently failing, and I am unable to make myself understood.

The dream ends as I am in the middle of another interminable conversation with Atia over ways in which she plans to poison Servillia. I turn my head out of boredom and see uncle Larry's nurse is not paying attention to where she is wheeling him (she is engaged in conversation, possibly with Brutus) and is dangerously close to wheeling him down one of the reality-defying staircases in the middle of the room. I try to run and grab the chair, but I am too far away. I have a vantage point (think "internal balcony" or "verandah") where I can see both my uncle's starting point at the top of the stairs and his crash site at the bottom. It is a pretty bad spill, and he begins to cry. However, the sound is not "right". Rather than sounding like an eldery man crying, it sounds like a multitude of babies whaling, perhaps turned up to eleven. It sounded so anguished, so awful, that my last thought in the dream was "won't somebody put him out of his misery?", which is a pretty shitty thing to think about one's great uncle.

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So yeah, the journal's still up and running! No need to panic!