11996 October 01
I walked into the gym locker room. $F5 and $F4 were there. The bench between the rows of lockers was missing. They asked me if i knew where it might have gone. I remembered that the stage crew had been in. They took the bench for the wrestling team, who had removed it from the floor. They opened the doors at the back of the locker room, which led to the under-stage area. The wrestlers should know where the bench was. I had heard a rumour that some of the teachers were fooling around behind the school. It was sexually deviant behaviour. It was a bad rumour to be spreading. People might have overlooked the incident, though. I sat on the bench and took of my socks. I put them in my locker and continued undressing.
11996 October 02
I crossed the campus in front of the decorative gothic building. $F4 was with me. We stopped to look at the large picture on the wall to our right. It was a large photographic image of a woman sitting by a desk. I told $F4 that it was a double image and not a real scene. The roof peak of $P141 hung over the top of the girl at the desk. There were repeated images of the woman behind the main image. There were many desks in the large classroom. The girls in the background were oriental. I walked a little to the left, looking over the picture, which was hanging at the left front of the fancy classroom. We were in $P141, in the large old lecture room that was used for medical classes. There were rows of wooden fold-up chairs that faced the front of the circular room. In the center of the chairs, near the center of the room, there was a tall white statue. The teacher came to the podium at the front of the class. He saw $F4 and i by the picture and asked us what we were looking at. I told him about the picture. He was hostile with me. He yelled at me, treating me like someone who never learned anything. I sat down in the chair at the left front of the class. I was upset for being yelled at. The class started, and the other students read from pamphlets they had. They had picked up the pamphlets from the table on the left front wall of the classroom, near where the picture was. I did not get one, and could not get up now to do so. I just listened as the class went on. A dog wandered through the classroom. Then the teacher noticed that i did not have a book. He started hinting that i was falling behind and that this was typical of me. I got annoyed and went up tot he table to get a book. I looked over the table, but could not find any more copies of the correct pamphlet. The teacher told me that i might as well forget about it. I sat back down. My denim jacket was over the back of my chair, marking it for me. I was sitting apart from the other students. They were all in the rows on the left side of the room, and i was in the middle of the right. My lunch bag sat on the seat to my left. There was a yellow jacket on the edge of it. It must have been after the strawberry jelly that dripped on the side of the bag. I swung at the yellow jacket to shoo it away, but i could not draw attention from the rest of the class. The others in the class were afraid of the hornet and ran away. There were a number of hornets in the classroom again. The teacher wondered why. I told him that it was a bad year for hornets. I thought that the cool spring and previous cool fall had kept their predators away, so the wasps had a chance to overpopulate. The classroom was outside, on the lawn. I sat in the front row on the left, looking at the lilac tree out the window, where the hornets had come in. I could see a large spider out the window. It was a large black spider with a red hourglass design on its bottom. It moved around in the window in front of the lilac bush. I was scared of it, so i moved back away from the window. I told the teacher about the spider. I could see the abdomen of the spider as it curled into a corner of the window. It was several decis wide. It had odd shaped red patterns across the back. They did not quite form an hourglass shape. Then i realized that the back end of the spider had made it through the window and into the classroom. The spiders were getting larger. They were squeezing through the edge of the window. It was $X5, a little kitten, playing in the window. It was not one of the spiders after all. $X5 squeezed through the crack and came out in the classroom. It was a couple of old women with fur coats trying to get through the window. They were stuck-up women with too much makeup and dark red and black fur coats.
I walked down the street. This was a scene from my other dream, the first one i had in the night. It was about a wedding. People were gathering for the occasion. The girl would become famous after she was married. The people started to line up. I wondered if the girl was even there. Others talked about her. Someone mentioned how she would be “thrust into fame”. I looked down the line of people. I could see the Maharaja at the end of the line. I could see the girl at the front. We were in a square courtyard. To the right was a church with very tall spinnel steeples. The place looked unfinished, with parts of the spires missing. That was the cathedral in which they were married. I remembered the ceremony. I could see the girls in the fancy white dresses ahead. They gathered for the dance. The girl was with the dancers. Men in green and purple robes lined up across from the women. Their robes were trimmed with gold, and were arabic in style. I walked past the crowd and into the main hall. There were girls in white tights dancing ballet. MY mother was with me. She liked the cultural stuff. I looked to the side of the dance floor, where the older girls stood. I remembered all of this from before. I had watched them before. They were somewhat attractive. The younger girls came in on the right. They passed very close to us. I was on the right side of the hall last time i saw this. I could see the entire show from there. I remembered that there was another set of older dancers. They should be out on the main floor. I watched the group of girls on the left line up in two rows for the dance. The one at the end of the row near me was attractive. My mother simply liked the culture. Then a guard in red marched into the room through the door just to my right. He hit my foot with his boot as he passed. I pulled my feet in so that no one would trip over them. I must be too close to the show. Last time i was not.
11996 October 03
I walked around the lake, along the cliffs. Small rocks slid from under my feet and fell into the water below. I looked over the edge, pushing some more rocks into the water. The water was a reddish mud. I climbed around the lake on the left side, climbing across the bookcases that lined the wall. There was a small opening to the next room just over the top of one of the cases. All of the books were reddish brown or red. The room had a deep red hue from the combined colours of all of the books. I looked through the small opening, into the next room. There were red bricks on the wall i peered through. The room on the other side had more bookshelves. I would have to climb down on the other side of the wall. I thought that i should probably take the old wooden door that was in the wall. The door was below me, to the left. The other room was on the way out, and i had to go through it. Then i saw the small opening in the unfinished wall to the left. I put my hand into the opening. The place was like my old bedroom in my parents’ house, near the closet by the chimney. I pulled my hand out of the opening. There were cards hidden in there. I had left them there a long time ago. They were collector cards. I looked at them as i walked across the room.
I was riding in the truck, down the road. The other tractor-trailer pulled around us from the side, passing us. We were in a tanker truck. I watched the red tanker from the side as the other truck passed on the right. The other would cut us off, so we tried to slow down to a stop. The other truck went by and rode off. We followed it. At the intersection, the truck went straight. We turned right to head into downtown. We drove by the restaurant. The driver did not mind where i was telling him to go. We were heading toward the institute. It was somewhat dark outside as we drove over the narrow road, over the shallow hills, toward the institute. There was a large cemetery on the left side of the road. There were no lights around. I mentioned the names of the cemetery. All of them had strange names. “Gas land”, i said, mentioning the one coming up. There were hazy lights over the landscape to the left, as if it was a large refinery with tower lights and flames. I thought of an old story. The man said that $A47 had a hat from Gas Land. I told him that the hat was from Gaslight Village. We turned around and headed into the restaurant. We walked up to the counter. I ordered a special. There was a free piece with the order. We would eat here first.
11996 October 04
My mother was upset. She wanted to go to a foreign country. She talked about going to Belgium. We could not tell my grandmother that we wanted to go to Belgium, because she would be upset. She would not send us money in Belgium. I told my mother that Belgium might be a problem anyway, as it was not close to Italia. She had thought that it was. I told her that it was actually north of France. I thought of Europa. I could just leave and travel the countries. I imagined myself walking down a crowded street. I wondered what would happen if i happened to bump into my cousins. I imagined how i would come to be there. What would i tell them? I could be doing a rock concert in the area. I thought of the festival and thought that i might actually be dressed in drag. I imagined how i would look when they ran into me. I walked through the crowd of the open theatre. The audience was gathered on wooden benches to the left, as the players performed in the arena to the right. I sat at the edge of the arena with my mother, just inside the metre and a half division of trimmed wood. I showed her the play. I had seen it before and knew that it was near the end of an act. We watched the actors talking above the audience, down the row in the front of the seats. I had seen this performance before and told my mother what was going on. The actors were dressed in brown leather costume and jumped over the short partitions, shouting their lines jocularly. The play was a Shakespearian comedy. The actions of the actors were funny, thought i never really liked this particular comedy. The act ended, and the crowd started to disperse. It would continue in another room. I walked by the large wooden table where the actors had sat down. One of them greeted me by my first name. I looked at him and recognized him from $P14. I said hello, but could not remember his name. I asked him what it was, but he would not tell me. I was disappointed. I followed my mother toward the other room. The next scene would be starting there. We entered the room through the archway on the side wall, which led from the left side of the arena, where the actors had just performed. The room was decorated rather fancy. Unlike the previous room, which was decorated with wood, the next room looked somewhat like a disco ball. Everything was draped in white satin material, and there were purple balloons and streamers. There was a standing arch to the right with a runway leading through it. A glass bench stood against the far wall. To our left was a table along the back wall, with a large punch bowl and food. This was the room where the oriental dance would be performed. The tables had etched engravings in their clear plastic surfaces. I remembered all of this from before. A woman brought more food to the table. We felt that we were in the room a little too early; everyone was still setting up. We were also not where we should have been for the play. We headed back into the other room. The play was being performed there. We walked down the aisle, which ran between the waist-high wooden partition and the front row of seats. The actors had jumped over the partitions and were searching the audience for someone. It was all part of the play. We walked past them. They were wearing whit shirts with fluffy sleeves and baggy pants. They had on leather vests. They looked very much like musketeers. We tried not to get involved, as we should not get drawn into the play. I remembered auditioning for this play. The audition was for a woman. I wondered where the play was being held: whether it would be here at $P52 or not. She did speak english, so i thought that it would probably be in the United States. That was correct. I looked back at the mound in the middle of the arena. The actors were still wearing their musketeer robes. I thought that i should be elsewhere. I jogged through the forest. I had to start the trail over. The stage of the play was on the other trail, which i had just left. I rounded the corner and headed down the trail to the right, which went up the hill above the play area, toward the white gazebo. The forest was in autumn, and all of the leaves were on the ground in reds and dull yellows. I ran behind the white gazebo. I tried to take it easy. I did not want to get sweaty again, as i had just showered. My knee was bothering me. I ran into the covered corridor of the white pavilion and headed down the wooden stairs. There were chairs in the center of the aisle ahead. I could not get around them, so i had to climb through them. I made my way down the walkway as i moved through the chairs. I realized that my feet could not touch the floor in this part of the pavilion. I turned back and ran down the hall. I walked back over the hill and came out at the end of the trail, by the stone wall. The trail ended at the top of the wall, which dropped a couple of metres to the street below. There was a suburban area beyond. A man left papers in a mailbox, which hung from the stone wall. I had a pile of papers under my right foot, on top of the wall. He took some of the papers and put them in the mailboxes. The mailbox near me had a sign on it with helvetica type that read “PAPER BOX ILLEGAL”. I rolled up my newspaper at the edge of the bed upon which i was sitting. I joked with the others that $A16 needed plumbing. $A242 was there. We joked around and then started to wrestle. I teased him about being a big fighting man. He was not wearing a shirt. I got up from the edge of the bed and wandered the house. My mother was there. We had to go, but i was not really interested in leaving. I stayed on the edge of the bed as she got ready. There was a lot of junk on my bed. I started to gather some of it together as my mother went to fix the plumbing in the bathroom. I realized that it was her job. Things were not as they should b e here. My mother should not be working pant-time as a plumber. She should be at $P179. She had a full-time job. I wondered what happened as i watched her leave the house. I looked down at her from the window as she walked out of the driveway, toward her car.
11996 October 06
I was sitting at the table in the office, which looked a lot like a library. $G3 were there, around the table, and we were talking. I talked to the people that i got along with. Then i noticed $A506 come in through the door to the right. He walked in the double door, across the hall, here the workshop was. He had to get to work. I wanted to say hello to him, but i could not go into the shop. I peeked in around the corner to see if i could see him. I opened the small panel at the top of the door to see if i could see him. The alarm beeped as i opened the door. I could not see anything in the room, so i closed the panel. I walked back into the main room. $G2 was rearranging the office. The computers were being shuffled around. I went to my desk, which was an open counter cubby. The computer at the desk was now in a kiosk mode. I could not access the computer without codes. I wandered around for a little while. Many of the computers had been replaced with older terminals, which were being run in kiosk mode. The screen of my computer was orange. Then i noticed that there was a label on one of the other computer’s keyboards. I was an old programmers card with instructions for crashing to the programming level. It said “Command a then option P”. I read it over, talking to myself: “Even the best programmers forget command a option P.” I pressed the buttons and hoped that the computer would come on. The monitor lighted up. Each of the functions turned on one of the monitors. Both of the ones on my desk were no on. One showed a colour picture of a landscape, with wide fields and mountains in the background. Both of the screens had buttons on them labeled “hang-over”. I pressed the buttons to dim the screens. I walked around by the kiosk desks. I could not do my work because the computers would not let me into the kiosk mode. They had given me a bad computer when they moved my desk. It as an old Commodore computer, with Apple logos stuck on it. My software would not run on such an old system. $A52 threatened me to get to work, but i could not get anything done. I was upset and did not have to work here if i did not want to.
11996 October 08
I was very thirst. I had to get up early in the morning to get a drink. I made a float in my parents’ kitchen. I thought that it would not spoil my sleep. I drank the float, but i was till thirsty. I would have to make more. I went around the center counter to the side counter in the kitchen. I wondered if someone was watching me. I took the ice cream out of eth freezer and scooped some into my glass. I scooped in enough to make the float thick. The ice cream had chocolate chips in it, and it was soft.
I read my lines for the play. I had a small part. I walked into the theatre. The others were in costume already. I had to borrow my script from someone else because i did not have mine. A woman asked me if i belonged there. I told her that i was part of the play and headed for the costume room. I played the part of a thug. I was wearing gray sweat pants with my purple plastic top. It was a matching sweat suit. I started to change into costume, but i had to get my stuff. I climbed out the bus. I was in the kitchen of $P19. $A231 was there. I said hello. I liked talking to him, but i had forgotten something. I had to get off of the bus. I started to get off, but i realized that i had forgotten my key. I had dropped it on the bus. I returned to my bus seat and picked up the key from the floor. It was a key with a rubber band around the end. $A231 was standing on part of the rubber band. I hung on to the seat rails as the bus went around a corner. I picked up the key and hopped back onto the outer edge of the bus as it left the kitchen. I looked forward. I could see the driver’s face in the mirror that hung off the front of the bus. I hopped off of the corner of the bus in the dining room.
11996 October 09
I was on the bus. We drove out the small gravel drive, toward the gorge. We left the main road and drove between the plowed mounds of dark shale-stained dirt. We drove right up to the edge of the cliff before the bust started to turn around. The bus driver liked turning very close to the edge. I sat in the window seat on the right side of the bus. I wondered if the cliff would fail under our weight. The leaves around us were all coloured with autumn. I headed up the road that led away from the gorge. I looked back to see the bus driving in circles behind me. I remembered that i needed something from home. I had to go home to get it, but the bus had already left. I was upset that i missed it. I walked out the front door of the dull-yellow cement-block building. It was part of the military base. The bus had already left the base. There were several military officers around. I stood outside, looking down the entrance road, which ran off to the right. There was a factory-looking building across the street. I looked to the left to see fighter planes on the road. They were naval split-tail fighters. This was an airbase. I looked up to the left to see one of the airplanes approaching. Then one from the street took off to the right. It took off very slowly as it passed in front of me. The jet exhaust flared out the back of the plane as it slowly ascended into the air. Then it started to turn away from us. The back of the plane rotated toward us and we were hit with a strong wind of jet fumes and dust. I thought of the plane crashing as i got hit by small particles. I imagined flames as it crashed. I looked up to see it turn to the left and fly away.
11996 October 10
I turned off my car and got out. I walked across the parking lot and into the one-level elementary school. The place reminded me of $P71. I walked down the hall of the school. The halls were off-white and rather narrow. Students were wandering around the halls. There was a woman walking down the hall in a white and blue T-shirt. This must have been an emergency school. There was smoke coming out of one of the class rooms down the hall on the right. I imagined the school with a bomb threat. The principle was walking down the hall, urgently looking for the bomber. He spoke to me for a moment. The other people remembered me from before. I had been in the school. I mentioned the blue and white T-shirt to them. I could not describe the T-shirt, though, so i would just have to point to it. I wandered down the hall. I could hear a band playing rock music. I rounded a corner of a T in the hall on the right. There was a band playing in the center of the hall. The hall was very short and let to the outside door on the side of the building. They were surrounded my stacked cardboard boxes. $A128 was playing the drums. They paused for a moment and then started again. I started to walk away. I liked the way they sounded. I could hear the guitar. It had a real good fuzz sound. I stopped and looked back down the hall, but i could no longer see the band around the corner. I continued on, following the hall around the corner, to the right. I was in the main hall of the school. I passed two other kids, who were talking in the hall. I walked out the door of the school and down the sidewalk, toward the parking lot. I thought about playing guitar. I could play drums. The drum part that the band was playing was real simple. I could do it easily. I imagined playing well. I would have to be taught. If i learned, then i could tell $F15 how good i was, but i would have to live with $A36. $A36 would say that i was better than he was now, because he had gotten so out of practice. I walked to my car. It was a large tan car from the seventies, but it was not mine. The music was coming from my car. Someone must have left the radio on in the tan car. Mine was parked on the other side of the lot. There was a policeman standing on the right side of the lot. He was ticketing cars. I had a vehicle ID on my car, so mine was safe. The police officer washed the window of the black car so that he could place a sticker on it. The car will not get dirty.
11996 October 11
I was fixing the wall of the room in $P19. It was a sheetrock wall, but i could see the two-by-four studs. I was trying to put an electrical box into the right edge of the wall, by the door. The pink fiberglass was cut away in a small box opening into which i tried to push the box. I tried to make the hole a little larger by removing some of the fiberglass. The rest of the fiberglass sheet started to fall off of the wall. My mother commented on how the fiberglass should be handled. There was a white plastic brace across the frame, where i was trying to hang the box. It was in the doorway for support. Then i smelled something burning. There was a fire in the next room by the chimney. I could see the smoke through the rafters in the wall. I hurried over to it. My grandfather had left a bottle of antifreeze on the other side of the cinderblock chimney. The chemicals had overheated and evaporated into the air. I went over to the laundry machine and removed my white clothes. I put the dark colours in. I piled the darks into the machine and placed the whites in the basket. I took them up to my room at my parents’ house. I noticed the white plastic braces in the skeleton of the wall as i entered. They were actually glass bulbs. I noticed that one was cracked and another was gone. They should be there. They held up that part of the house. I told my grandmother that they were missing. She was shocked that the ceiling supports in her basement were not correct. I walked around in the basement. There was a set of new black brackets holding up the I-beam on the ceiling. They were set in at angles facing outward from the center of the house. I walked out into the parking lot. My old car was there. It was a yellow Rabbit. I started taking some of my clothes out of the car. The car rolled backwards. I put it in forward gear. The front end of the car rolled under the dark green truck, which was parked by the curb. I tried to get the car out. The back of the truck had black supports on the rear cage.
11996 October 12
We stood in front of the old barn. My parents stood by the cars. The barn used to be a dull red, but all of the paint was peeling off. I had to move the cars so that they were in a good parking spot. My mother wanted me to drive one of the cars. I backed one of them up the driveway. It was not where she wanted me to move it. I drove forward again, over the dirt driveway. It was not where she wanted me to move it. I drove forward again, over the dirt driveway. There was green grass growing in the center of the tire tracks. I drove to the right of the barn and headed around the back side. I drove out over the grass behind the barn to turn around. There was a large open field behind the barn. A small stone wall ran down the right side of the field, hiding amidst a row of trees. My mother told me to park the car by the cliff. I drove out across the field. There was a streambed at the far end of the golden grassy field. I drove to the edge of the field and ran parallel to it. I wondered if the cliffs were by the streambed. My father asked where the cliffs were. My mother said that there was a natural rock structure to the right of the field. It was a very large rock. I looked through a division in the rock wall to the right of the field. There was a large mound of white rocks. I walked up toward the mound. There was a small gravel wash ravine coming down off of the mound to my left. Someone had rushed the rock into gravel. Someone had tried to climb up the pile. I could tell by the way the gravel ran down the ravine. There was a dirt road that ran down the left side of the mound, bordering the short stone wall. Another dirt road ran perpendicular to the wall, on the right side of the pile. The road down the center of the piles was a mining access road. I could see the machines mining farther down the road. I walked onto the corner of the pile to my left and picked up a sample of the rock. It was a palm-sized piece of rock, and it felt soapy. I started to walk back toward the field when i heard one of the tractors following me. I was uneasy about the machine coming. I tried to move faster, but i was so afraid that i could not. I made it into the field. I stopped by my parents. My mother commented that the rock sample was a strong rock. She had read that about the rocks. I felt it again. It felt smooth and soapy.
11996 October 15
I skated across the parking lot of the small fast-food restaurant. The building was square and seemed like a McDonald’s. I had a pair of skis on my feet. The others skied around the outside of the building with me. I had a jet pack on my back, but had not turned it on. I was having fun going around the restaurant. I though that it was a good workout. There was a little bit of snow on the ground. I should try out the jets, even thought i knew that they were too strong. The lever on the side of the pack pulled forward to turn it on. To turn it off, i had to push the red button on the side. I hit the button after only a short time. The others talked of how well the rockets seemed to work.
11996 October 16
My father was working on the wood siding on the outside of my grandmother’s house. We were along the west side of the house. I noticed a bee flying around near me. I tried to get away from it, but it landed on my hand. I knew that it would not sting me if i did not react to it. Then i noticed that there were more wasps flying around my father and me. My father was attacked by the large brown bugs. He fell down, injured. He was unconscious, so i needed to go to get some help.
I was with $G3 at the campground. We were surrounded by tall widely spaced buildings. There were no sides to the pavilion. It started to rain, so we ran underneath one of the roofs for protection. I did not quite feel like i belonged there. I felt out of place with $G3. I played the small electric guitar. The others were gathered nearby, talking among themselves. I watched the stars above as i played. I had to play the music, though. I was not doing it well because i was reading it off of a page. I was having trouble reading the cursive lines. It was actually printed on the back of $F11’s head. I tipped his head forward a little and spread the skin on top of his skull with my thumb and forefinger to see if i could read any better. It as just an excuse i was using, though. I really could not play the song, and i was pretending that it was because i could not read it. I stopped trying to read his head and looked back at the xerographs.
I was out in the open field with $G4. We were walking around in the middle of the run. There was about a deci of snow on the ground. It started to get cold, so we had to leave. We started walking down the grassy hill, away from the open air on the top. I was interested in one of $G4. I spoke to this person as we headed down the hill, toward the pond. The other $G4 had gone through the water in the center of the pond, but i did not want to get wet, so i tried to walk around the shore. I went up along the left shore, but found it to be a cliff. There was not enough land by the water for me to walk on, and the cliff was too muddy to climb. The leaves in the trees along the hill above the short cliff were coloured with autumn. I headed back, telling the others that they should head up the hill to the right of the pond. I walked up the side of the hill to the cement path on the crest. I was in a college-like place. There were long old buildings on the other side of the path. There was also a long building at the far end of the lake. It had a center section with a domed tower on top and two wings to either side.
11996 October 17
I was on $P1, on the corner near my grandmother’s house. I got out of the car in front of her house. The grass was still green, and it was night. I got some of my stuff out of the car from the side door. There was someone to the left of me. I did not know whether there was someone there. I could not see well in the dark, but it seemed like there was someone there. I looked up into the sky to see if i could see any stars. They were difficult to see. I thought that if i waited, my eyes might adjust to the darkness. I walked toward the house. I closed the cellar door as i entered. The answering machine in the other room played. The message was a warning. It said not to accept any packages. I wondered if they came as advertisements. Then i wondered if the man outside was delivering the packages. I watched the outside through the door. I could see the strange yellowish figures. It was a fake 3D effect on the album cover. I was worried about the message from the machine. I walked out the door of the room and across the hall, into the other side of the apartment. There was a television on in the main living room. The I Love Lucy show was on. I turned the volume down a little to keep it quiet. The group of people came in the door of the apartment. They were looking for me. It was related to the plot of the television show. I moved into the room in the other side of the apartment building, crossing by the stairs leading down. They were wide wooden stairs with a wood banister and a reddish runner rug. The television was on in the room. A group of people came into the doorway of the apartment. There were a couple of police officers in old fourties uniforms with Fred and Ethel. They had thought that there was something wrong. It was a situation comedy.
11996 October 18
I put some of the liquid on my scalp. I was watching myself in the mirror as i did it. I noticed that there was a logo from $G1 on my head. I turned and walked down the hallway. I did not want to see in the mirror. I put the can of scalp liquid back together. As i screwed on the top, however, i realized that i still had the dropper in my hand. I had to reopen the can and screw the squirter back on the bottle before i closed the top. I made sure to hide the label so that no one could see what i was using. The others were gathering around, talking to each other. I hid the small bottle of hair tonic inside of a larger can of shaving cream. The shaving-cream bottle was red and white striped and made of galvanized metal. The others asked what i was carrying. I told that it was a bomb. They laughed and joked about it. Then they wanted to see the container. I told them that they could not. I had the container on the bus. We traveled along, down the corridor, out the door, and into the back alley. There was a long paved walkway leading away from the door and down the back alley. I had no shoes on, and i the pavement was uncomfortable. The heavy-set oriental man walked along with me. Then i noticed $A107 walking along the ramp, which ran over my right side. I wondered if i would race him. I ran down the long corridor to the end. $A107 ran on the catwalk over the planted shrubs on my right side. The white wall of the glass corridor bordered the path on the left. I ran about the lame speed as $A107. I ran out the double doors at the end of the corridor and down the blacktop sidewalk outside. Then i noticed a snake in the glass off the side of the path. I looked at the snake’s eyes. The eyes were slanted, which meant that the snake must be poisonous. It also had a snub nose and broad head. The snake was not supposed to be in this region. I should warn someone. I imagined children running down the path toward the snake. I imagined stopping them before they ran into the snake.
11996 October 19
I was on the top of the waterfall with the other people. The man was explaining the gorge area. The falls came off of the flat stream to the right and dropped into the ashen-brown rock gorge on the left. The falls rolled down the steep slope of the rock face. Then the man fell over the edge of the falls. He tumbled down the rocks and into the gorge. I had to save him, but i could not move him after his fall. The falls curved to the left as i headed down he rocks after him. He lied still at first, but then started moving. He acted all right. I told him not to move. He might make any injuries he had worse. He moved away. He was wearing a blue long-sleeve T-shirt. I was at the top of the falls when the girl fell over the edge and tumbled down the gorge. I was very distressed. I would have to help him. Someone started talking about hot sauce.
I was driving home from my parents’ house. It was late, and i had to get home. It was snowing outside, and there was a storm moving through. The old country road on which i was traveling was snow covered and dangerous. Then i came upon a fallen tree near a yellow house on the left. It was blocking the road. There was wooded countryside on either side of the road. I would have to turn around and find a detour. I drove back into the small town at the crossroad. $F4’s family was in this town. I would have to take a side road to avoid the tree. I talked to $F4’s family in front of the small house. I was unsure of the route that i should travel. $A14 got in his car as i was leaving. He would be traveling on the road as well. I drove off, ending up behind him at the light at the crossroad. I was in the left lane, and he was in the old yellow car of the early fifties design, in the right lane, in front of me. I would be turning to head home. I had to get home before it was too late.
11996 October 20
I had to leave from the apartment house soon. My grandmother was ready to leave now. I told her that she would have to wait, but she already had her jacket on and was carrying some things in her hand. I told her that it would be at least a half hour before i was ready to go. She was impatient. I walked into the back room. I thought about sliding. I would be sliding out of here soon. There was a man in the room with me. He was talking on the telephone. He knew about our slide/jump and was telling the others to come. He told them that our jump was “Live at five. That’s right; live.” He had to explain that we were doing a live jump and not an ordinary one. Then i noticed the girl outside the window. She was listening in on his conversation. Too many people knew about our jump. She was going to tell the others. The boy hung up the telephone as soon as he realized that he was being listened to. The others had captured us. They had the controller and were questioning us on the live jump. I told them that they did not know what they were doing. They knew nothing of jumping. The man took apart the controller. I did not think that he knew how to handle it. Then he started telling me about the device, and about portal fractures. A portal opened. It was unstable, as the man had described. There were offshoot portal fragments twisting off from the main portal. They glowed with the same magenta light as the main portal. A sudden warp flare shot off to the left in a bluish static discharge, hitting two people who had been standing there. One of the offshoots passed through Quinn. He fell back onto the couch, his mind exposed to a sudden change of thought. He was enlightened by the experience. I went back into the bedroom. I had to get my things together to go. The other person distracted me suddenly. Something was not right. I was not in the correct place. The woman glanced over the pictures that were standing on the double-level end table. The picture of her mother on the table was incorrect. It was Rosanne Barr. I knew what was wrong with the picture, but i pretended that i did not. The fracture in the portal had crossed the realities, so the picture was not consistent with the girl’s reality. I asked her who her mother was. She looked at the other pictures on the table. The other photo was of a woman who looked similar to Rosanne. The two photographs on the shelf could be of either woman. It was hard to tell which was Rosanne and which was a look-alike. The girl had switched mothers in this reality. I looked over the first picture carefully. It was of Rosanne as a rock star. Her hair was short and curly in the half profile. It was different from what it should have been. I thought that she should have been a nobody in a trailer park. I wandered around the house and sat down on the bench on the right side of the bus. I tried to sleep, but i could hear music on the speakers. The song was familiar. Then i realized that it was “Swan Song”. It was my song, but someone else was singing it. I recorded my version first, but they copied all of my lyrics. They did not, however, sing them like i did.
11996 October 21
My hand had been hurt, but it was better now. I looked it over. The cut seemed to have healed across my left hand. It went across the top of the hand on the outside edge. My mother was there. I moved the fingers on my hand to see how they felt. The fingers on the left hand had been reattached. There were no marks from the operation. My hand worked fine, but still felt strange.
I was in the kindergarten class at school. I had to take the class over again. I felt strange to be back here after all of these years. I was still a grownup. The teacher lectured to us. I walked out of the classroom, through the door on the right. There were people talking in the hallway. Someone mentioned that Santa Claus would be coming to the school. I headed back to the class. I felt very out of place. I sat down at the desk, but i was too big for the seat. The teacher lectured to the class about the large birds. She was talking about an albatross. I took some notes on the subject. She mentioned several things that i did not know. Then the children started to ask questions. I felt uncomfortable.
I was in the large library. The walls were a bare white, and curved as they approached the ceiling. The stacks of books were lined up on the upper floor, with desks around the outside wall to my right. In front of me was a large glass window. It was a leaded-glass window, intricately decorated in an early victorian fashion. The small panes of glass were opaque white. The building was shaped like $P168, as i could see by looking down on it from the air. The large window spread across the back corner of the building. There were ducts and other features on the roof. I walked along the outside edge of the stacks, following the curvature of the outside wall. I ran down the corridor and down the main stairs near the lobby. The stairs were in a square well, with four sides to a flight. I came to a section where there were only two sides to the flight. There was part of a bookshelf o the stairs, between two sets of stairs. Normally, it would fold up underneath the set of stairs to the right, but it had fallen open. I folded the shelf up again. It was filled with books. I could see them through the rails as i pushed the bookcase into place. I liked the way the stairs were designed, but i hoped that the bookcase would not fall back down. I quickly passed under the shelves and continued down the stairwell. Two other people walked up the stairs past me. They were talking about mutants around the campus. I hopped down the last flight of stairs and went to the left. I had to go back up a small flight of stairs to get up to the main-lobby level. It was an error in the design of the original stairs. There was a glass all with black metal struts. It separated the stairwell from the rest of the main lobby. A man watched me from the lobby desk as i hopped up the shallow bock stone steps. I jumped down the last three steps and circled to the right to get out of the stairwell. There were fluorescent lights and wooden bookcases to my left, in the main part of the library. I turned to the right and walked out across the large high-ceiling lobby. The man watched me from the desk as i headed for the dark-grey doors, which lined the outside wall. The doors had decorative frames, with small columns going up either side and framed windows over them. I passed by the entrance desk, hopping merrily across the lobby. I opened one of the wooden doors to get outside. A man was trying to come in the door that i had opened. I let him walk in. He was followed by a female student. I walked out the door and turned left down the sidewalk. A street ran in front of the building. There was another building across the street. There were many police gathered in front of the building. The police cars blocked the front of the building, and many officers were gathered around the cars, standing off against whatever was in the building. They were prepared for the emergency. I then noticed the redheaded man with the police. He was one of the police. I recognized him from before. He was the one i was supposed to meet. I watched him as i walked along. He noticed me watching him. I turned and continued walking down the road. I wondered if he would be suspicious of me. I decided to fly away. I moved my arms in a freestyle swimming motion. I thought that this must be a dream, because that is where i normally fly. I wondered if i could fly for real. I soared up over the building. I flew past the campus and out over the agricultural fields. It was grey and muddy out, the trees already bare of leaves. I flew low over the short-cut crops in the field. I knew that people would be following me from the campus. There was a dirt road ahead and to the right, running along the edge of the field. It ran to a housing development back in the woods. I was heading home. My house was in this direction. I flew toward the road. Then i noticed the car watching me. I would have to lose it. I turned to the left and flew back across the field, toward the woods that were along the back side of the field. I thought that i might be able to lose them if i circle through the forest and approach my house from behind. I flew through a small patch of trees and came out in the small field from the other direction. There were power lines coming down the road and ending in the small substation at the edge of the small field. I remembered this place from a run with $G4 that i was on. The dirt road led away and connected to the other road by the main field, farther up the road from the main field. The car that was following me would try to drive around to head me off, but i knew that they would not have time to drive all that distance before i could cut through the woods. I flew under the power lines that ran along the median between the two fields. The field from the power lines would confuse my signal. I crossed the small corn field and headed into the woods. My house was in the grey wooden housing development, through the woods to my right. I would circle through the woods to try to lose my pursuers. Then i thought of the satellite that was watching me. I could lose it by moving under the transformer, but i wondered whether i could lose it in the woods.
11996 October 22
I was at my parents’ house. It was very early in the morning, and i had just finished cleaning up in the bathroom. I had to go to the kitchen to make lunch before i left to go to work. I was in the upper bedroom at my parents’ house. It was very dark outside. The windows were black. I went downstairs to the kitchen. I had to make myself some food before i left. Then i thought of the stranger who was watching me. I was standing in the booth on the street. The booth was shaped like a large car. I thought of hiding when the man came by. I moved from one side of the narrow car to the other, in the archway that would have been the car’s back seat. I was trying to remain out of sight. My mother was on the street with me. She walked up to the steps of the stone city apartment and asked the woman for directions. The woman started cussing at us. She must not have understood what my mother was asking. I asked the woman of the small shop where the lavatory was. My grandmother was there as well.
11996 October 23
There was a party in the back room of my parents’ house. Many of $G3 were there. We talked and joked. There were long red tube balloons at the party. People started inflating the balloons. They made a strange rubbing noise as they were inflated. We joked about them. Then $F10 and i started using them as swords. We were fighting with each other.
I walked along the shoreline of the lake. The shore was composed of small smooth pebbles. It was grey and foggy outside, and there was a storm coming in. I followed my father down the cement walk that ran along the water edge. Waves from the storm washed over the top of the walk. The water was waist deep at times. I looked out over the hazy lake. There were green trees along the near shore and on the island off shore. My father turned right and walked up the path between the trailers and cottages along the shore. I looked to the lake on the left. A boat was tied up off of the wooden dock. The wind and waves bounced the boat into the dock. Then i saw the yellow submarine capsize in the water. The storm was too strong. A strong wave came over the shore, lifting the water level to my waist. The submarine was sinking just off shore. I went to the right and into the large houseboat. The boat was roughly square and painted white, with blue trim. I walked into the room at the upper level, with the plain cottage-like furniture. I told my father about the sinking submarine and about the incoming storm. He said that the houseboat was very large, and thus safe against the storm. We were on land anyway. The boat moved, however, as the waves came in. It suddenly slid off of the beach and onto the lake. It started rocking with the waves. It was too top heavy and tipped over. I thought of water coming in through the windows that circled the back sections of the room. I thought that i should swim out of the boat and make it to the surface. I thought the situation over a moment before i woke up. I realized that i had been dreaming. I was still on the boat, and it was still sitting on the shore.
I was in the public lavatory. It was a large square room with blue tiles along the wall. Other people that i knew were gathered there as well. They were all $G4, dressed in their running plastics and sweats. We had to get going for the $G4 run. We ran out of the lavatory and into the country. There was a dirt road that ran from the old worn-down barn, out across the farm’s field. We ran down the road until we hit the fence. There was a round metal cage of chicken wire suspended on a pole, low to the ground. It acted as some kind of gate in the fence. The trail went under the wheel and into the field. We crawled under the wheel to continue. Then the farmers came out. He was upset that we were trespassing on his field. I ran on toward the house. $G4 stopped for a rest at the house with the wooden deck around it. Several of them were drinking beer off of the deck. I saw $A81 on the deck and said hello. He called me by a name that i did not recognize. It was a new nickname. All of $G4 had new nicknames. They were now going to cal me “Sledge”. I then saw $A70 on the run. He stood on the other side of the deck as i rounded the corner of the house.
11996 October 24
I was in the large hotel. I ran up the fancy stairs. The banister and the step boards were painted white. The hotel was very clean. I walked down the wide halls with the maroon oriental carpeting. I opened the decorative white door at the side of a stairwell and walked in. It was the bathing room. There were many bathtubs all around the room. I walked through the narrow corridors between the tubs. I felt that the tubs were suspended in the floor, that there was nothing supporting them from below. I was careful not to knock any tubs loose because they might fall through the floor. All of the tubs were a light colour (white or cream) and were rounded in shape. I noticed the black tub in the center of the room. It seemed different from the rest. I wondered what was below the tubs. The room reminded me of the open stairwells. I was uneasy of falling.
11996 October 25
I was back at $P7, visiting the old building. The place was different. I walked up the stairs. $A46 was still there. I said hello as he passed. Then i noticed the water leak on the floor. There was a small puddle. The science wing had been closed for repair. I looked up behind me to see the glass window leaking. It was dripping down the stairs and running out across the floor. I walked back down the stairs.
11996 October 26
I came into the bagel shop with $F4. It was a long narrow room with a counter on one side. I ordered a bagel and asked if i could get one without cream cheese. They said that they could do it. I asked them to toast a garlic bagel for me. I saw the loaf of garlic as they brought it out onto the counter. $F4 told me that i should not ask for butter on my bagel. It would not be couth. I looked outside, through the large multipane window in the old wooden frame. The walls were white, and the wooden frame between the shingles was a dull stained brown with flecks of shellac chipping off. There was a courtyard with cobblestone paths and cut grass. I tried to open the window, but could not. Several other people walked by. Then i realized that they were famous people. I looked into the window on my right, trying to act naturally. The man from the group of people said hello. He helped me open the window to the shop. I looked in, but the counter was too far to the left. I wanted to leave my bagel on it, but i could not reach. Then the tour group walked by. I stood up and looked at them. They peered in the window of the old red brick building. There were railroad tracks inside that ran the length of the shop. This place used to be a factory before it was turned into a bagel shop. I noticed a small boy with the group. He looked somewhat like Leonard Nimoy, but his face was very white. They were all special children on the tour. They were all very intelligent. I talked to the others in the corridor that was behind the brick arches on the outside of the building. The children were interested in me, but i could not understand what they were saying.
I was in $P31 with $Z. He told me of the new cafeteria as we walked down the narrow brick corridor. I remembered this place from before. It was a new wing, upstairs from the old cafeteria. We walked around a corner. There was a room to our left that had several boxes in it. I did not remember this from before. There must have been some changes to this wing. The walls and floor looked cleanly new. I remembered the stairs at the end of the hall, which went up. This wing of the school was here before, but it was now open. $F2 walked with me as we looked at the wing. We walked down the corridor, which opened up into a small auditorium at the end. There was a white circular stage on the left side with three wide shallow steps leading up to it. The curtains around the stage and the steps were both light grey. I wandered into the open area. There was some artwork in the glass case to the left of the stage in a small alcove. I walked over to the case to look at the artwork. A woman entered the room. It was $F2’s mother. She still did not like me. I kept looking at the artwork. It was a bunch of nuts and bolts that had fallen from the ceiling. They were all the same shape. The nuts were cut to look like the letters “alpha chi”. I looked at it closer and realized that it was actually “chi rho”. It was a narrow rectangle with a semicircle off of the top. There were small plaques on the wall with similar shapes on it. IT must have been from some society.
11996 October 27
I was rehearsing the play in the school with the other people. We were in an auditorium with several chairs. One of the people in the group with us was very obnoxious. The others kept taunting him because they did not like him. One of the people grabbed the back of one of the chairs and flipped it up over his head. It was rather stylish. The others were trying to prevent the obnoxious person from sitting. I had a chair in my left hand, and i thought about flipping it. I wondered if i could do it as stylishly as the others. I decided to run my lines instead. I opened the book and started reading the play.
11996 October 29
I was packing up my camping equipment at $P69. I was near the back edge of the quad. I rolled up the greenish tent on the ground. I tried to make the roll as tight as possible, as i would have to carry it and the rest of my hiking equipment on the hike. $Z had already packed his stuff. I had to re-roll my tent tighter. It started to drizzle. I did not want to get the rolls wet, so i walked toward the end of the quad. Others were crowding around as i headed off the corner of the quad, past the square building on my right. I walked across the station. It was quite crowded at this time of day. I noticed that there was someone watching me. I walked out of the large room and into the outside hall. I wondered if i was being followed. I felt like it was, but i could not be sure. I passed on oriental woman in the hallway. Then i saw a picture on the wall. It was of a runner. The large picture had the letter C on it. It was a piece of student art. I turned to the right, trying to lose the man following me. I walked into the room. It used to be a library, but it was now filled with student art works. I looked around at the paintings and noticed that they all had the letter C on them. I saw some other pictures of runners. The theme of all of the pieces was the letter C. The artist had already done works on the letters A and B. I walked past the table where people were studying. I looked at the instruments that were hanging on the wall. The place was a music store. I wandered around for a moment. The tables where the CDs were stored were covered with cloths. I headed toward the back of the store, were the owner waited at a counter. He was selling comic books. The store was going to be moving to a new location, so the owner was having a show now to get rid of some of his merchandise. I noticed that all of the book racks were covered, however. The other person explained to me that the store was moving into the new building across the street. I looked across the street at the old red brick building. It had brick arches holding up the front walkway, and large glass windows. The road passed in front of it before curving off on the right side of the building. An intersection was in front of me, where another road came in from the right. The other person talked of hanging from the bars that ran across the archways in front of the new building. I pictured the building and doing pull-ups on the bars. I had thought that this building was new, but it was actually very old. I walked down the street. I realized that i was not on the bus, so i walked into the store. The others were watching me. I walked between the racks of items. There were clothes all around me, but i was not really looking at them. Something was wrong here. They kept watching me. I wondered if they suspected me of shoplifting. I had to sneak out of the store. Then i noticed that there were many police around. I walked down the aisle of the store where the food was stored. I could hear the police report coming over the radio. It described an accident. I thought that the police radio was very loud, as i could hear everything they said. They described a very bad accident, in quite graphic detail, using medical terms. I was interested in the report. I walked out of the store and into the parking lot. The radio talked of a boy who had severe injuries. Then the radio went off. $A9 was in the parking lot, standing by the cars with the group of others. I wanted to fly. I felt like flying away. I knew that $G4 would not get drunk with the police so close. I wondered if they would think i was stoned fro wanting to fly. I talked to $G4 about pixie dust. You usually need it to fly, but i could fly without it.
11996 October 30
The girl was in the house with me. It was like my grandparents’ house on $P12. I was upset and flew around the house, in the large white room. I was a vampire. I flew up over the stairwell. I moved around along the ceiling rapidly. The girl was surprised with my agility. I bounced off of the ceiling a couple of times, a rock song running through my head. I flew swiftly into the back room. $A136 was there, watching television. I said hello, which surprised her. She was startled.
Something was wrong with the car. I looked under the hood to see if i could find anything wrong. The others watched me as i inspected the engine. I found a loose hose at the front end of the engine. I fixed the hose by securing it onto the nozzle. The engine started running smoothly again. I would have to get a new connector cable. I pulled part of the line of hose out. It was an air tube. I got in the car and tried to drive home. The car rolled into the intersection but then stalled. It would not start. I looked in the hood, but i could not see anything. The car had rolled out from under the street light near the corner of $P99 and $P43. I realized that i had forgotten the battery. There was a car waiting on the other side of the intersection with its lights on. There was also one pulling up behind me. I was in the way. I got out to check the hose, but i had forgotten to release the hood latch. I went back in and released it. Then i went to the front of the car and pulled the safety leaver and opened the hood. I looked inside. The battery cable was loose, so i reattached it. I should attach the air hose as well, but i realized that it was part of the alarm system. I had forgotten when the other end of the hose attached. I pulled the other end out and looked at it. There was a small black clip on the other end that plugged into something. I looked around the engine block to see if i could find a matching clip. The man on the curb told the woman with him never to unclip the alarm system.
11996 October 31
We were having a picnic behind one of the old science buildings on campus. I sat at the wooden picnic table. I noticed dark clouds moving from over one of the buildings. The clouds formed a pattern like the branches of pine trees. I looked over the pattern when i realized that it was actually ivy growing over the outside of the stone building. I looked over the ivy for a moment. The dark clouds were still approaching. The others started to go into the building. It was going to storm. Then the clouds lightened and the sky cleared suddenly. I thought that this might be a tornado. I went into the building and stood in the lower hallway. The walls were narrow and plain white. I had entered through a docking bay at the back of the building. I went over to one of the windows in the hall and peered out through the blinds. I had trouble looking around the blinds, but i thought that i could see a large funnel cloud. I told the others in the hall with me to head downstairs. I looked to the right, toward the docking bay door. The bay was outlined in red. Then i ran to the left. I wanted to get a better look at the tornado. I entered the stairwell on the left side of the hall. There was an arm across the stairs. I swung the metal bar aside and ran up the stairs no the main floor. The main floor was level with the entrance on the front of the building. I came out into the corridor with wooden trim around the sides. They were old offices with smoked glass windows. There was a man in one of the rooms at the end of the short hall. His office was cluttered with papers. He walked out of the room and into one of the other offices in the hall. I could not get to the front of the building through this hall. It did not go all the way. I started to head back down the stairs when i noticed the metal arm across the staircase. It had a yellow sign on it. The sign warned that an alarm would go off if the stairs were used. I went back down anyway. I turned down the light-blue halls in the basement level and headed toward the front of the building. I ran out the front doors of the building and looked around. It was dark outside, but there was no storm moving over. It was evening. I thought that i should go back in, so i turned to head back across the corner parking lot, toward the small bar. There were a few cars in the gravel lot, and a couple thin lamp poles arching dimly from the sides of the lot. I tried to get into the front door of the dark-blue building, but the bar was closed. This was a student bar, but must have closed for the night. The man who was cleaning up in front of the tavern told me to go around to the side door of the building. I walked around the side of the dark-grey building. There were dull-red cloth awnings hanging over the windows. Air conditioners hung out one side of the building, and neon beer lights flashed from the window. I came to the old wooden white screen door on the side. This was the house entrance. I went back into the building and headed down the lower corridor. One of the clean-up people followed me from the kitchen. I looked back down the hall behind me and saw $F16 coming down the hall behind me. I stopped and waited for him. He was wearing a bright green jacket. I said hello to him and we continued down the hall and out the back door.
I was talking to the other guy for a little while in the back room of my parent’s house. He started making passes at me, which i was uneasy about. He was wearing a light blue tee shirt and stood very close to me. He was rather skinny, and had smooth skin. I looked at his neck and the upper part of his chest, which was exposed above his shirt line. We joked about things. We should go to sleep soon because it was getting late. He left, and i talked to my parents for a while. Then i headed up to my bedroom. I walked in. The sun was coming up in the window on the east side of the house. It was my old bedroom in the old part of the house. It was morning already because of the time change in this area. It was after 4:00 in the morning. I expected the boy to be in my bed when i got into my room. He was not there, however, and i wondered where he went. I looked in the other rooms to see if i could find him. Someone was sleeping on the couch in the front part of the upstairs. I looked closer and found that it was my father. He woke up and got up from the sofa. We will have to get ready to go, even though i haven’t slept yet. My father will be driving as we head south on the long trip. I walked outside of the house. The other man was there. He was waiting for the busses. The busses gathered along the roadside. My bus was to the left. $A25, the bus driver, leaned out the window of the bus and asked if i was getting on. I told her that i would sit outside for a little while and do some writing. I sat on the ground and started writing. There were many people walking around. Then one of the busses started backing towards us. I pulled on $Z’s shirt to try to get him to move out of the way of the bus, but he resisted. The tail pipe of the bus came very close to him. The man was $A5. He had to take the bus home. The route 31 bus was here, though, and i told him that he should take that bus as it would take him closer to his home than the bus i would be riding. The others assisted him to the bus. I showed him the bus schedule. I asked him what road he lived on, but he could not remember. It was southeast of $P4. I remembered being there once for a party, but i could not remember it exactly. I walked through the large living room, which was crowded with people. They were wandering around after the party.