perfidy

I had inherited my mother's house and property. It's a decent-sized house on about five acres. But the house is in general disrepair, and in my dream I didn't have the inclination to get it all fixed up. What I did instead was have the house razed, with the intention of building a kickass underground structure on the same spot, using the existing foundation and cellar as a template. I had in mind part bunker/catastratorium, part cozy hobbit-hole.

So with the upper structure demolished, I began cracking though the concrete in the cellar. In my dream I was alone doing all this, which is utterly ridiculous for a variety of reasons, but primarily because I have zero training on any tool or construction principle and the most sophisticated bit of toolery I ever did was installing a cat-flap in the door to my basement.

But none of it mattered in the end, because as it turned out the earth beneath my mother's cellar was already inhabited.

A wizardly-looking fellow sort of appeared, surprising me as I was just taking sledgehammer to concrete. He looked like Gandalf if not quite so imposing...rather dumpy, really...and explained that he had been living in his own underground building for quite some time now on the very same spot, and would I please knock off trying to crash through his roof. After some back and forth, he ended up giving me a tour of his place, and it was pretty impressive. There was a very deep...shaft, I guess, but not a cold and drafty and sooty shaft, but a bright and interesting shaft, with little niches here and there with tasteful if uninspired bits of art in them. Think the inside of a very deep well, with the big stones and the curved surfaces everywhere, but without the panic that comes with falling down a deep well however tasteful the art inside may be.

We finally reached the bottom, although now I'm not sure how. I don't remember stairs now, and I think we may have been just falling very gently. As it happened, the bottom level of his place ajoined a largish chain bookstore. I thanked him for the tour, and went to poke around the store. I ran into someone I knew inside...all I remember is she was a she...and we browsed together for a bit but ended up separating. I wound up buying a copy of The Green Berets.