A Chinese Restaurant Dream

I had this dream last night.

The information was somehow imparted to me that I could save a life by visiting a certain restaurant in Chinatown. How I learned this I don’t remember, nor do I remember whose life I was supposed to save. What is certain is that I accepted the mission.

I set out for Chinatown filled with a sense of urgency. I was not familiar with the restaurant–let’s call it Wing Kee since I can’t remember what it was called in the dream. Neither was I familiar with the street it was supposed to be on, and I know Chinatown very well. I anxiously wandered the streets of Chinatown in search of the unfamiliar restaurant on an unfamiliar street. I knew that until I found the restaurant and went inside a certain person’s life was in danger. I did not question how I could save a life by simply going to a restaurant.

Finally, I decided to ask for help. I went into a restaurant I had never been inside before. There were a couple of waiters up front. I asked them if they knew the street and the restaurant I was supposed to find. “Yes,” they said, “let us show you.”

We walked out of the restaurant, and between it and the restaurant that had been adjacent to it only moments before was an alley. At the end of the alley was Wing Kee. It looked like something from the fifties. It had a gaudy faux-pagoda motif and signs painted on the picture window in that old-fashioned pseudo-Chinese lettering. But what was most startling was the glow, like the glow from a U.F.O. in a fifties science fiction film. The glow flooded the alleyway. I started walking toward the restaurant. Halfway through the alley, enveloped by the glow, I turned around and took a brief glance back. The waiters who had shown me the way were nodding their heads and smiling knowingly.