I am at the office taking down corrections over the telephone from a client. The voice on the long phone call breaks off and goes into a long silence. I refrain from saying "hello, hello" and wait calmly to hear the voice again. At long last, no apologies, the call resumes, and the corrections are sent to the printer without a hitch. (The continuation of the dream that started this way developed as follows . . . )
There is a woman we go to for advice when something we don't understand comes up at work. I have a problem, so I go to this woman's house. It is constructed like a two-story, wooden apartment building. I climb the stairs and go into a a second-floor room where several people wait their turn. Despite being the second floor, there is an engawa (ground level veranda) and Mr. Noto is sitting on it. He sees and greets me but I quickly drop my eyes to the floor and feign being absorbed in thought. The taciturn expression is rather impressive. I too wait for a while, but feel I will be wasting time, so I stand up, say "see you later" to Mr. Noto and go down to the front door. But, I have no shoes! Thinking I must have left them upstairs, I return to the previous room. When I look down from the engawa, (this time at proper second-floor height,) everyone is dragging their shoes out onto the lattice grating in the entrance for me. I ask whether mine are among them, but unfortunately they are not. I check the lavatory along the way, should they have fallen off there, as I make my way back to the front door.
The woman I was there to see appears and says, "If none of these shoes fit your feet, why don't you change your pants not your shoes?" She makes me change into a new pair of pants. They are not the usual black pants I like, but dark brown, moreover the shin portion is transparent. Showing bare leg is apparently the latest fashion. If I suddenly go home wearing these, my family is bound to be suspicious. "On second thought I think the others are better," I say declining her proposal.
I awake here.