Pink Light

I’m in Las Vegas with my long-time-ago best friend Susan but it’s ‘Now’ and we’re both adults. For some reason, i’m barefooted. We go into a casino and i’m worried that the casino people are going to ask me to leave because i don’t have shoes on but as Susan and i are walking through the part of the casino where the shops and restaurants are and i’m looking at other peoples’ feet. I notice all the women have shoes on but they’re all wearing sandals, and even with their pedicured feet and toe jewelry they’re all jack-toed and bunioned and have generally ugly looking feet. I feel that even if mine are bare and the nails aren’t polished, i’m still not as gross as any of those other women. I point that out to Susan and she just laughs and says “I told you not to worry about it.” We go into a gambling room. It’s kind of dark, dank and icky looking (reminds me of downstairs at Charlie Goodnight’s) and we decide to try the next one. To get from one casino to another, we don’t have to go outside because there are these short tunnels between the walls of the different casinos. The tunnels are stucco’d and the floor is dirt. We stick our heads through one of the tunnels into the next casino but it doesn’t look fun there, so we go further to another tunnel. We go into the gambling room. It’s a combination gambling room and theatre but the show hasn’t started yet. The dealer is sitting behind his table. The table is a half circle and he’s in the middle. There’s one other person at the table but all the other people (maybe twenty or so) are seated around the theatre waiting for the show to start. We get some cards from the dealer and the casino lady brings us some drinks even though we didn’t even order any. My drink is in highball glass. Something in ginger ale. The ginger ale is very good and strong. I drink it down pretty quickly because it has a lot of ice in the glass. There are three round lights over the dealer. They’re like fluorescent tubes but circles. Neon i guess, but the circumference of the tubes is bigger than neon tube normally is. The light is flamingo pink and shining in my eyes so brightly i’m having difficulty seeing. It feels like i’m wearing contacts and the light is getting stuck between the contact and my eyeball so everything is a blur. The casino lady notices that i’m squinting and asks if i would like for the lights to be turned off. I tell her yes and i tell her that the light makes it feel like i’m wearing contacts even though i don’t wear any. She gives me a look like i’ve said something odd and goes to where the light control is. I wish she’d taken my drink order before she left because i’m thirsty for more of that ginger ale drink. I realize Susan and i aren’t even playing our cards and wonder if the dealer is going to get mad.

That’s all i remember. Odd dream. Mostly what struck me about didn’t strike me until i was awake and walking to my car to go to work. That pink light was uncomfortable bright and left me feeling quite disturbed even awake. It got me thinking about Philip K. Dick and the pink light beams he saw and i wondered for a minute if i’d been abducted by space aliens. And then i laughed at myself for thinking that. But really… it WAS very bright and disturbing. I assume i’d feel “probed” or something wouldn’t i? I can’t remember exactly what PKD said about the pink light. A means of communication from space travelers to us? I forget. Sometimes i think he was insane but sometimes i think that he was right and “the empire never ended.” Reality is so fluid sometimes.