My brother paused to look at something a in a store. I looked around, found the staircase to the third floor, and kept climbing stairs. Each stairway between floors had been made different from the previous one. Some were in enclosed stairwells. Others were in the open space.
The stairs and the stores tended to get more posh floor by floor. On some flights I was the only person around. On others, there were some exercise-oriented people. A couple of men were particularly overweight, but somehow it was apparent that they had recently lost a lot of weight, and were determined to continue doing so. Something about the ratio and position of muscle and fat in their bodies made this clear. Their sweatiness and enthusiasm made it even clearer. They did not seem the slightest bit pathetic to me. Also, their good mood and apparent high-self-esteem seemed invulnerable to anyone's opinion.
In the dream I seemed to be in better condition than I really am, because I climbed up dozen of flights of stairs, hundreds of vertical feet, at quite a rapid pace, without stopping for longer than it occasionally took to find a drinking fountain and drink some water. I regretted having left my brother behind, but I was also exhilarated by the exercise.
On the 74th floor there was a door, very ordinary-looking and marked simply "EXIT," which led to an outdoor balcony with a railing that didn't look like it would reach my waist. I'm not good with high open places, and wouldn't have been tempted to step outside even if it hadn't been raining.
I don't think there are any buildings in Indianapolis with as many as 74 floors. But in the dream, the building kept going up higher and higher. At one point I saw a sign saying "110th floor."
And the businesses kept getting more upscale. This didn't necessarily mean that they kept getting more attractive to me. On the contrary, I felt a very unattractive atmosphere of ruthlessness among both the store keepers and their customers. I felt that my clothes became more and more out of place. I was pouring sweat, too. I assumed that everyone could see that I had been stair-climbing. I also assumed that they were used to seeing ambitious stair-climbers. People weren't lining my route and cheering me on. I assumed I could buy some hydration if I chose. Probably for somewhere over $10. Not a friendly atmosphere.
As I got higher, the staircases just kept getting showier, and less likely to be hidden away in stairwells. And they became more crowded. I jogged up and up among crowds of strolling people, wealthy people and people trying to look wealthy. And then those making no effort to look rich, and therefore seeming much more likely to be very rich. I laughed out loud at the thought that someone might mistake me for a billionaire.
Above the 110th floor, ramps tended to replace the stairs. Huge broad ramps, narrow steep curving ramps, ramps in between. The height of individual floors kept increasing. More and more of the outer walls was glass, letting us see for many miles.
Before I got to the top I turned around and climbed down, taking my time, full of endorphins.
A golden eagle had landed on a table in an open-air cafe. A crowd of people, giving him a decent amount of room, stared at him. He stared back at us, seeming as curious and leisured as we were.
Then I woke up.
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