Another World, in My Dresser.

        I dreamed that I was living in a different place. Tile floor in the bedroom, for one thing. I was still using the chests of drawers I got when my brother and I were four and five. They are a little beat up, but still serviceable. In the dream, one of the cats had tossed up a monumentally squishy fur ball next to the dresser. The bile had gone under the dresser, so I pulled out the bottom drawer to clean it up.

        The open hole in the bottom of the chest revealed a whole alien world. There was a lime green scoop shaped bug about the size of my thumb-tip. Two smaller and darker versions of itself rode on is spoon shaped back. Five even smaller versions, almost black rode on their backs, two on the first, and three on the second. They were so cute I decided I had to have a picture of them.

        In the far back corner was a slightly moist looking brown toad. I was pretty sure it was dead, as I poked it gently and it didn’t move. Along the back, there was a ledge with several small cat toys, a couple of bottle caps and a piece of string that came from higher up in the back of the dresser. It was tied around medicine bottle cap, which was in turn loaded with cat food pellets and other crumbs. The whole thing looked like a makeshift lift of sorts.

        I herded the bugs into the back of a small toy dump truck, so I could contain them while carrying them to the front of the house where the camera was. That was not as successful as I would have liked, as they kind of got spooked and started running all over the place. I didn’t get a picture of them all stacked up together, but good enough ones that I might be able to get them identified.

        They escaped out the window and into the front yard. I hoped they would be OK, and tossed some kitty kibble out into the planter as a peace offering.

        I went back with some paper towels to clean up the fur ball. By that time the rest of the class had arrived (?!) and were debating the health of the toad. I went to pull out the next drawer up, but couldn’t get it to move. The bottom of the drawer above it seemed to have fallen in and jammed it in position. I pulled out the drawer a couple above so I could empty the fallen drawer’s contents. This simple task was rapidly becoming more complex by the second. When I pulled out the top drawer, I noticed that I needed to secure the bottom of that drawer as well. I set it on the bed and turned back to my original, or secondary task.

        I noticed a similar ledge behind the top drawer. This one had several soda bottle tops, a couple full of water, and several with M&M’s, chip fragments and cat kibble stored in them. There was a small window pulley with string through it, the other end of which I knew went down to  the medicine bottle lid on the bottom ledge. There was something intelligent living in the back of my dresser. Something that used simple machines, and hoarded food and water.

        I was intrigued. The teacher, meanwhile, had pulled the dead toad out of the bottom of the chest. “Look, it can’t be alive, it’s hollow. All of its guts are missing.” The teacher then proceeded to open up the toad and show everyone. He then reached in a pulled out the spinal cord. “It’s pretty dried up, too, been there awhile.”

        I was a little grossed out, as were several of the rest of the class. I did my best to clean the bile up without removing the other drawers. I didn’t want to disturb my stowaways any more than I had done already.

        After my cleanup was done, I emptied the second drawer and pulled its bottom back up into position. I put everything back, checking to make sure I wasn’t disturbing anything alien. I put most everything back in the drawers, there was no sign amongst my clothing of the bugs or their handler.

        I gently slipped the drawers back and then went out front to see if I could find those bugs. I had the impression they might be important to whatever was living there, and I wanted to bring them back.

Ad astra per technica,

FF