I wandered down the slick , shiny, dark wood with its pale red stripes twisting and disappearing across the surface. The sea of blue ,a deep jewel blue, not sapphire but not turquoise, either went down the center of the dark cocoa mass. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw them, creamy blue plates with the pink layer of peppermint around the edge and sponged toward the middle. I picked up one and snagged a pink shrimp and celery stuffed shell. There were also green casserole but it had a pattern on the top and I knew I couldn’t take any without leaving a calling card. The meat with the mushrooms and green and yellow feathery twigs could easily be moved and not show. The green mush was already dented as was the other vegetable platter. I put some of them both on my watery blue plate and slid some pieces to hide where I had taken food. I don’t know why I was being so careful. I just knew that I didn’t belong . Hell, I didn’t know where I was or how I belong anywhere. My world was not following any rules I had grown up learning how to succeed or at least how to survive.

” I don’t know. And i DON’T feel sorry for them. There are too many of them working -pushing papers and making work for their friends . The state accomplishes nothing , just sits around, talks or shouts or storms off. Leaving a mess for the rest of us to clean up, pay for and bow to.” yes, ma’am what ever you want. ” It wouldn’t matter if you didn’t want to do it , whatever, . If we all didn’t do it then the sheep would come in and take it anyway.” A deep , dank voice sounded in. “No wonder , expenses go out. It’s about time the sheep learn what it was to really work” .” We have to pay them , why shouldn’t we change the governing goo. ”

Clatter went glassware and some kind of metal, a lot of warnings and shushing broke out, a pause then another voice started in. ” I just know that there is more work on wood and the study and rooms that are used. Now , they are constantly used . The study is always in a shambles. I can’t really clean or get any paperwork, payroll or stuff down , because of the visitors. ” The new voice had a stern quality that was challenging and nobody took him up. I didn’t wait to hear the next discussions. I didn’t want to be asked what I thought .

I kept on eating and the more I ate the more the design in the bowl of the plate shined. It was a stark, pretty design with some parts edged in a light shade, other parts were that deep ocean blue design from earlier. The people ,the workers, were unhappy, or perhaps they were just blowing off steam in private quarters, but—the public doors were open. Two ideas coalesced in an opaque disk that slapped at me. The door was NOT open, the room was not open. There had been no one else in there, not even the people I had easedropped on. What was that room and for the matter what was my couch? I ate some more green mush and casserole something in a soothing privacy and a quiet maturity in the context of what I had just heard. The only place I had been to was the bathroom just down the hall and the garden outside. Who were all those voices ? Where was I? exactly.