I am wandering through one of those shops that smells like pine. It is for old ladies to decorate their houses. There are candles and figurines of cozy 50s suburbs. I wander towards the christmas section.
It narrows from an open shop to a sort of hallway of connected rooms. Each room is progressively less decorated. There are workers scurrying to stock shelves, or put them there in the first place. They apologize to me specifically. They weren't expecting me.
I get to the last room. It is all white, but it is pretty dark. There are curtains coming down from the corners of ceiling and wall. One lonely worker dramatically turns on a lamp off to the side. On a pedestal, a three foot tall cross is illuminated from behind. The cross rises from the torn open stomach of a doll. The back of the cross is gold, the front is all shadow.
I remark that it reminds of me of some of the installations I used to see at umbc. A friend remarks that the room feels very desperate.
We crack small jokes about the weirdness of the room. "All it needs is to dim the lights, then from a hidden projector, on the wall right here, 12 inch letters spell out "What's up, doc?"
I woke up laughing real hard.