Tree stairs

The workers are busy. They are renovating the garage that juts out like a bay from a rear corner of the house. On the same side, they are terracing the driveway with bricks, as if it was a sort of civic plaza. I discovered this activity only when I got up this morning. I don’t know who ordered it or why.

When I arrive in front I notice more developments. On the large area in front of the house a Wal-Mart-like big box has been built with numerous aisles stocked with products packaged in colorfully illustrated cardboard and molded plastic. The products themselves look alike. They could be cell phones or toothbrushes or coffee makers.

In back of the house there used to be an acre or two of scrub land, in one part of which we once tried to plant a kitchen garden that was soon overtaken by weeds. Beyond that, there was a marshy region that could be crossed on wooden planks. Even further were the shacks built by people who had migrated from the hills, which were visible in the distance. These were later replaced by new houses. The people who lived there were suspicious of outsiders.

Now all of this is gone. In its place is a sea below a long curving wall, and on the land side we find ourselves in the middle of the downtown of a good-sized city, whose streets go off in all directions. Each one is lined with fancy shops with custom-made signs. I expect to recognize a store or restaurant, but I’m disappointed.

I am now accompanied by my dream self, who seems to know his way around. Maybe, instead, “I” am my dream self and my companion is a second dream self. In any case, the two of us navigate this city together.

We next find ourselves inside a colossal mall, or perhaps an airport terminal. Its interior is nearly empty and its roof is skylit. Whatever shops, restaurants, or offices there are are concealed within its walls. They are either invisible or disguised as architectural nuances.

We do discover a restaurant, I don’t know how. It is disguised as a delicate paper funnel or lampshade suspended by a wire from the roof. You enter by allowing yourself to be vacuumed up by this funnel. We see this happen to someone, but choose warily to search for a conventional entrance.

We find it on another floor. Its modernist décor features chrome seating with thick cushions of black leather that recall Le Corbusier. Tables are mostly enclosed within these black blocks giving the diners a small and walled-in appearance. There is little room to maneuver between these cubes. The lighting is bright and yellowish.

The diners don’t have much to eat. Hardly anything is on their plates. They pick at crusts and crumbs. We intuitively appreciate the price they paid to get in. We see the man who’d been sucked into the funnel. He is eating, if you could call it that, in a niche by himself, bending to his plate like a mechanical statue. He has grown a reddish beard several inches long.

We then return to the vast mall “street.”

Walking aimlessly yet purposefully, we pass a tree. It’s a small, grayish brown, almost leafless tree. The curious thing is that against it leans a curving staircase that seems to have its arm around the tree’s shoulders. The steps of the staircase—foil-like brushed-steel accordion pleats (since there are no railings)—grow narrower as they rise and end in a point among the tree’s lower branches.

I look back with an impulse to climb it, then move on.