The Bookshop

I meet Jennifer LF, we are walking down a street and bump into each other. She says I should come into this bookshop with her. She says it is Borders, but it is very small. She takes me into a small area, that has a table in it. I sit at the table while she looks for books. She chooses four, she gives two to me, she says it is a 2 for 1 offer. Then she goes into the coffee shop area, I stay at the table. At first I think she is going to buy them and give one of them to me. But when she doesn’t come back I think she was just choosing something for me to buy.

I leave the shop and walk to the train station. I get a train back to where I live. It is a small house on an estate. I think I am just a lodger there. There is a woman living in the house who owns it. I go to my room, it is quite small, there isn’t much room except for the furniture. The furniture is pine, and the décor is pink. It’s a very girly room, not me at all. I open my bag and find the two books from Borders. I realise I forgot to pay for them. I wonder if I have time to get back to the shop and pay for them.

I rush to the train station. I can see a train stopping at the platform. There is no one at the counter, instead there is a machine you have to buy tickets form. It looks like the cash machine in the Halifax. I put my credit card in, but I can’t figure out how to choose which station I’m going to. There is a Chinese man behind me. He is getting very aggravated because I am taking so long. He shows me how to do it. While he is showing which buttons to press his arms are going all over the place, I think he might have a condition like dyspraxia. I think I miss the train but I end up back at the book shop somehow.

It looks like a bigger place than it did before. I sit at the table I sat at before and a waiter brings something to my table. It looks like a salt grinder thing, but it the top half of it is a fizzy liquid I think is an alcoholic drink. I realise I am sitting on a balcony, below me is a dance floor, it looks like a ballroom. There is a man in a suit with a microphone and lots of people milling about around him. Some of the people are holding black discs with numbers on them. I think it is some kind of speed dating thing, that this man is running.

I decide I want to leave. There are some people standing near my table who are in the way. One of them picks up something which is mine, a Chinese lad. I have a go at him. I am walking out but when I get close to the door I see that something else is going on. There are some oldish women sitting in chairs, the place has shrunk again. There are some men in the corner setting something up. I ask the women what is going on but they ignore me. I hear one of them talk about a singer. I turn around and see an African man in traditional dress setting up a microphone. He tells us he is Malaysian. He thanks the man who owns the coffee shop for letting him come and sing (there seems to be a fear of this man coming from the outside). I’m getting bad vibes off him and these women, so I leave.

I am walking down Birmingham Road. There is a woman in front of me, she is wearing a pink suede coat like the one I have but it is full length. She has blonde hair and is pushing a buggy.

At the house I am back in my room. The owner comes into my room. She sees some make-up on my bed. She tells me that wrinkle creams don’t work, you have to have surgery. She gets a couple out of the box and I choose one to try.