The communication devices were duplications of the little egg-shaped maraca that sits on the bookshelf.
The giant bug overlord was the picture of the beetle's jaws on the cover of Kafka's Metamorphosis, and, similarly, the bare breasted guards were variations on the bare breasted girl on the cover of Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana.
The glowing mothership is also easily accounted for - it was merely the yellow flashing lights emanating from the computer that had been left running on an overnight defrag.
The constant droning is interesting, as it could conceivably have come from both the aforementioned computer or, more abstractedly, from the toy stuffed bee that sits on the bookshelf next to the egg-shaped maraca.
Then there was that flickering image of an abbot (or a priest) that appeared on a screen imbedded into the wall. This image is as interesting as it is as effortlessly deciphered: the television was clearly (there being no other television in the room) an echo of the small mirror by the cupboard, and the abbot was clearly a reinterpretation of a small statue of Jesus.
The old lady, the only witness to the trial, was nothing more than a heap of clothes that had been left on the chair next to the bed. The jury that was to decide guilt or innocence was selected from the faces staring out from the collages on the walls.
And it was thus that sentence was pronounced and sleep was disrupted.
heart goes popWritten on Tuesday, 5 July 2005