Dream the other night had all my usual conundrums, debilitating fear of heights, frustration with commonplace expectations, and one that a quick search reveals I haven’t mentioned much if at all despite being a fairly regular concern, my slavish observance of the bus schedule. My return ride was always around 8-ish or else I’d miss a transfer and face a long walk home, never mind modern conveniences such as Uber. (I wonder if in a few-odd years when drones will come pick you up anywhere, my subconscious will update then?) The others in my group led the way to a higher platform, effortlessly traversing the gap over a ravine of white stairwells, while I froze; the steps on the other side were so narrow, I wasn’t sure I would land on them safely before attempting another leap upward—it was a wall-jump, fucking videogames! Eventually I determined my only solution was to be forced onto the ledge, which I somehow managed by inserting myself in front of another uninhibited procession. The balcony opened into a dark hall lined with warmly lit, classically decorated sitting rooms, each occupied with well-dressed snobs who seemed offended by my inspection. Lurking in the shadows beside me was Peter Capaldi the Doctor, looking a little worse for wear, but amenable nevertheless for a selfie, but try as I might, I couldn’t get the phone not to overlay dinosaur stamps on the camera.
This morning I found myself in an office building among a band of survivors of an apocalypse. Three of them who looked like members of the high school chess club decided that a Vietnamese girl Binn present would satisfy their pent-up urges. She complied and completed her duties promptly, and I tried to find her to express my sympathies, but instead I ran into an old colleague who seemed to remember me and called out my name. He wasn’t anyone I knew from my past, but he did seem familiar, like an actor who played the role of computer salesman in the 80’s, except his hair was gray and he was missing his right arm. We sat down at a table and he explained that he had been drafted for his expertise with the “Lexor-9” system, whose pre-Internet standalone capabilities made it especially useful in these times. I left by telling him to contact me if they needed help with the modems, which was apparently something for which I myself had a reputation… but as Silver Spear reminds us, “some reputations are false.”
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