The Stone Elephant

In the dream I am, at first, a young women with long brown hair in a tight red dress, scrawling notes on a clipboard in an ornate boardroom as stuffy aged white men argue over cocktails. There is a noise from outside the oak-panelled office and I step outside into a rock-floored cavern, where I am now the fitter, thinner version of myself that serves as my standard dream avatar, the red dress gone, replaced with a navy blue suit. From the dark end of the cavern comes a giant spider, speeding toward me on eight deadly legs. I run, my tie flapping over my shoulder, the spider quickly gaining ground until I burst through the giant wood and glass doors that seal the cavern, stumbling into a bellhop as I enter a sunlit city. I'm in grey sweats and a Star Wars t-shirt now, and though the spider is gone the guardians of Easter Island are milling around me now, emerging from an ancient hotel, and I raise my fists uselessly.

But they do not harass me; one slips the bellhop an invisible tip as if apologizing on my behalf. A behemoth stone elephant leaves the hotel and stands over me, trunk swaying, glowing red eyes boring into me.

"Ulnath grogaria mellor snu lau," the elephant says. And now I know what I must do.