Fish Don’t Swim In Water

I’m no stranger to weird dreams.

I’ve dreamt of dancing the tango and my partner suddenly turns into a wall. I’ve dreamt of being shot in the shoulder and subsequently waking up with a searing pain in the exact same spot I was shot in. I’ve also dreamt that I was Hannibal Lecter’s wife and woke up just as he was thinly slicing the soles of my feet.

Last night, I dreamt of fish. To be specific, I dreamt of 3 fish swimming from the hallway, into my room and then hiding behind my door. It wasn’t that my house suddenly had a stream running through it or that I was underwater. These fish were just swimming in air.

That’s freaky.

Even more disturbing, the first fish that entered my room went straight for the pile of dirty laundry and proceeded to roll around in it and got tangled in one of my panties. When I removed it from my laundry, it swam behind my door and wouldn’t leave.

Aside from fish and the womanly bits association, my dream evaluation yielded one possible explanation: I need to get a pet of the cuddly and four-legged persuasion pronto. Before I turn into my father who rears fish for pleasure. The fish in my dreams could be the ghosts of my father’s fish who died under my care when my father was away.

However, this explanation does not explain why my bedroom made a seamless transition into becoming a classroom at an all girls English boarding school reminiscent of Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers (This series provided me with an escape from my mundane primary school life and an equally mundane school uniform). I was trying to shoo the fish out from behind the door while all the other girls were making a fuss at the possibility of being caught by a teacher. It was at this point that I woke up.

My eyes immediately locked upon my bedroom door and for a moment, I was afraid to get out of bed and check behind it. Then the rational side of my brain woke up and told me that there was no reason to check behind the door as it had been a dream.

I didn’t check behind the door.

I now look at the door and think I glimpse a fish tail slithering behind it lickety-split. Afraid of being caught.