Missing the Train in the Endless Hallway

Missing the Train in the Endless Hallway

I woke up feeling like I’d just missed the last train to somewhere familiar. In the dream I was standing in the hallway of my old high‑school, but the lockers were replaced by wooden coat racks and the walls were paneled in oak like a 1950s boarding house. I was late for a dance rehearsal and couldn’t find the music room; every door I opened led to a different classroom from the 1940s, complete with chalkboards and tin desks. Suddenly I saw her – the girl I used to sit next to in chemistry, now in a tea‑dress, her hair in a victory roll. She was waiting by a window that looked out onto a cobblestone street, but the street was the same one we walk past on the way to work today. I tried to speak, but my throat was dry and my shoes were too big, so I kept tripping over the same rug. She smiled, handed me a paper ticket for a train that never arrived, and we both laughed, embarrassed, as the hallway stretched forever. I woke up just as the bell rang in the cafeteria.