Consumption

I dreamt I was walking through a fairy fair. There was a wide, dusty yellow road, and on either side stretched little wooden booths as far as the eye could see, selling jewellery, perfumes, and all manner of foods. I saw people I knew buying food from the booths and warned them, "Don't eat fairy food! Don't buy from fairies at all!" but nobody paid me much attention. I thought it wouldn't be so bad if they bought a beautiful necklace and in the morning it turned out to be a little pile of rocks, but to eat fairy food meant you would get stuck in their kingdom forever.

Finally I came to a building that the kids and I used to walk past when I brought them home, which we called "hajungel" because it had a swimming pool inside and great big vents on the outside which blew very hot and humid air. In the dream I was walking to this "jungle" because class was about to start with my teacher, all about kashruth. At the door I suddenly realised I hadn't been wearing my arm tefilin, which was alarming. I found it in my satchel and pulled it out, but just then my teacher came walking by. "Hello, Yonah," he said to me. I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of him by showing myself to be weird and extremist, so I put the tefilin back in my satchel. As I did so, I noticed it had a little tear in the strap. I wanted to ask about it, but we went inside (where it was Pardes) and class began.