Time After Time

10/25/15

I've just arrived in Korea. I enter an enormous hotel suite and see an assortment of relatives; cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters. I am exhausted and somewhat jet lagged. Everyone is sitting around watching Korean television, and I join them. 

A rerun of All In The Family is just starting. The opening credits are incredibly long with about a dozen actors listed, and instead of Archie and Edith singing "Those Were The Days," Edith is seated alone at the piano croaking out the standard "Time After Time" (not the Cyndi Lauper song, but rather the 1947 tune written by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn.)

I'm confused about the time difference and ask someone if it's really today or is it already tomorrow. No one knows.

I try to brush my teeth, but I'm so exhausted I insert the bristle end of my toothbrush into the tube, where it becomes lodged. My cousin Monica gives me a quizzical look, as if to say "what the hell are you doing?"

An interior window looks over a sort of atrium. At the bottom of the atrium is a massive swimming pool, maybe 30 stories below. I take a skimmer and try to retrieve something from the pool. Amazingly, the skimmer reaches all the way down. This strikes me as kind of a dangerous thing, so I retract the skimmer and search for a safe place to store it.