A bit rough.

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Just the heat, getting to me.  Sure, upstairs get to 73, but that just isn't cutting it.  Too warm.  Especially with it 80 to 90 degrees downstairs most of the day.  Yeah, I have been able to tolerate.  It hasn't been absolute misery.  At least as I don't try to work in it.  Brutal.  And, really, this summer has been shorter.  We didn't hit the higher heats until later, and it was broken up a bit, until nearly July. Still, it's getting to me.

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A dream, last night.  I entered a series of great halls, think great rooms in opulent castles.  It was so dark, however, I couldn't initially make out what was before me.  The walls were so far away, and items so spread out, that until I moved closer, details didn't make sense.

As I did move closer, the richness of tapestry, the fabulous luxury of carved wood, and materials of metal woven into wools and silks or pounded into wood... it was breathtaking.  Even with such low light, the place and it's furnishings shimmered.  There seemed to be a place, on through the hall and into a grander room, with other rooms yet, if smaller, which seemed to draw my attention.

I wasn't sure I wanted to see.  I knew I had not choice.  So I continued on, nearing a grand table set before a fantastical mantle, around a fireplace bigger than my home... or... so it seemed.  As I closed the distance, I realized the fireplace was not quite as large as first presumed, but was still vast by any comparison I have seen.

The table before it seemed to be set.  And, at first, it appeared rugs, or such, had been rolled, then set as if people.  I really didn't want to get closer.  I was drawn, as happens.  But this seemed to be by a force outside of the dream.  I... can... sometimes, often, usually, refuse a dream.  Not this time.  Though... I trusted the force drawing me nigh.

This was not a dream I could refuse, nor was the force something I could resist.  Come, see, as it were.  So, I... continued.

The table, as I got even closer, was set with the finest servings.  Gold, silver, brass, bronze, crystal, and else.  Jewels of platters, gems sparkling here and there and everywhere.  And food, enough to gorge an army, if obviously only meant for the elite.  Animals of every kind, fruits and vegetables.  Tankards of wine, and else.  Who could rightly tell.

Closer, and closer, and more hesitant than before.  The rolled rugs started to take shape.  These were not rugs!  These had been men, and women, I suppose.  Dressed in the finest of clothing, winter weight.  Wigged, or with long hair, all.  Ringlets, as some long past era dictated.  All quite dead, slumped where they had been sitting and gorging.

I couldn't tell what had killed them.  Poison?  But wouldn't it have affected them all at different rates?  Perhaps death was a choice?  Or... not a choice, but not an option either?  No violence seem to have been enacted upon them, no gore, no tear in their finery.  Dead, and had been for a while.  Their food rotted, their wine gone to vinegar, their milk soured.  I could not, thankfully, make out their faces, or what remained, or their hands... the only exposed skin, or what would be left of it.  Though... it... seemed as if they were mostly intact, just withered?

I didn't want to see more.  I hadn't wanted to see as much as I did.  I felt the one requiring me to see was right, so I saw... didn't fight.  I... have some idea of what I saw.  And, to be absolutely honest, whether I see it of flesh in some way, or what it means in flesh, or not... I am satisfied to know... His will shall be done.  Amen.