Chapter 12: The Dining Room

Chapter 12: The Dining Room

(Jay Dee, June 3rd, 2011)

The Dining Room blurs your perceptions somewhat.

It does not change, for with so many occupants, how could it possibly decide what it should change to?

But it appears to you differently than it appears to others.

It is the viking halls of Valhalla, the ceiling thatched with golden shields. Or a festival held in a vast Byzantine palace. It’s that pub where you used to listen to Iron Maiden and drink lager with the lads. It’s the nightclub in which you had your first kiss. Or first… something else.

But no occupant has ever complained of any discrepency.

While you drink your microbrew and have your salt and vinegar crisps, your friend may quaff mead and eat suckling pig. The conversation may turn to stories of heroism or politically correct jokes. You may hear Whitesnake on the jukebox or a Skald13 reciting Grímnismál14 .

But it does not occur to you that this is a problem.

You see only your friends, and that they eat, drink and make merry.

You are happy, and that is all that matters.

13 A kind of Old Norse bard.

14

The Grímnismál, or “Lay of Grímnir”, is one of the mythological narrative poems included in the Poetic Edda. The titular Grímnir is in actuality one of the guises of Odin. As Valhalla is Odin’s domain, this line thus calls back to the fourth paragraph’s assertion that the Dining Room can appear as the halls of Valhalla. 26