In this dream, I am staying in a hotel room on the 19th floor. Standing next to the window, the time outside seems to be early evening. There is no sign of the sunset, and the clouds hang grey and close to the horizon. The world looks somewhat colourless and drab, and I cannot identify where I am from the many tall buildings around me, though it feels like Japan.
My grandma is in the room with me and she is pottering about. Though she shuffles just like how she does in real life, she seems more sprightly, more alive than she really is. I keep watching the outside world through the window, and I am increasingly aware that darkness has fallen upon the world.
Suddenly in the distance I see a flash. It is so fast that my eyes don't register it fully before it is gone. Though the night is now totally dark, I can see smoke coming out of a building. It looks perhaps three or four blocks away, and my heart starts racing because I feel like it is some sort of bomb. I try to look for information on it on my cell phone but all the news agencies haven't reported it yet.
I bundle my grandma into a wheelchair and head out. The air is cold on the street, and it feels like it's raining but there are no raindrops. It feels grey and depressing as we walk through the streets. There are people rushing around, coming out of a subway station on the next block. We head into the underground, still uncertain where we are. Soon we are lost and we cannot find the exit to come out to the street again. The people are rushing by faster now, their faces blurry in their haste. I cannot catch anyone to ask for directions.
Then we head through a small doorway and we are back on the street again. My phone beeps and shows news of a bomb that has gone off just at the peace memorial - so we are in Hiroshima, I think to myself. Suddenly I am terribly worried about my dad and where he might be. We want to go back to the hotel but now I am totally disoriented and cannot even remember where the hotel is.
My grandma says she wants to use the toilet, so we head to the nearest shop which is a betting parlour (this bit surely is from "Singapore Pools" which is not a swimming pool association but the gambling place!). People are huddled around tables playing games, and when I ask for the toilet someone points to the back.
The sign says
Toilets
Tonsils
Grandma disappears into the bathroom and I ask a man nearby for directions back to the hotel. He tries to explain the way but it seems convoluted. I take out my phone again to see if I can call for a taxi, but it has gone blank and doesn't work at all. He calls a taxi for me, and gives me instructions to tell the taxi driver.
It's tricky, that hotel. He says. Ask for the pillar of Xiao Fang Xiang. he writes the letters for me but I don't recognise them - what language are they in?
Then I wake up
