June 7, 2004 [Midday]  

I’m sitting at a table covered with green wool. There are black borders around the edges of the table that tell me I’m trapped. Robed people who appear to be druids point toward sacred spheres and rubies and stones with no markings or gleam of awe or comfort. These spheres and rubies and stones are all hovering a foot above the table, spinning mystically before me. The druids say that I’m to choose one. They say that I’m not to be afraid. Looking at their ominous persona and feeling ill, I walk away from the table and search, search, search. There’s to be some Truth somewhere here, but I can’t find any. My mind is on other things, other people.  

June 10, 2004 [Midday]  

There he lurks above the tunnel, this hollow tube a foot in length and in circumference. The tunnel is made of iron with the promise of chill and horror. I’m staring right down the barrel of this tube. I see him, this spider the size of a fist, hanging on the top rim of this tube. The tube balances itself in the air directly above my face, hovering above a complexion with a mole like a teardrop on the left cheek. And this vibrant spider looks down the hollow tube, contemplating whether to leap down and strike or to only observe what lies below. And I’m contemplating him, too, hoping he jumps and strikes my eye or my lip or my nose. Please jump and infect my skin with deadly poisons never before researched. But he doesn’t jump. And I don’t smile.  

[Early evening]  

We’re in a hall that I see every workday, a hall decorated with class pictures of alumni, some of them dropouts that never completed high school or went on to college.

And the lesbian asks this confused hero with many tragic flaws: ‘Will you dance with me?’

I stare at the floor, the carpet thick with vines and geometric shapes too abstract to call mathematic. My heart is beating—but I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. My heart is confused—but I’m not sure if it will ever understand. My heart is foolish—but I’m not sure if that’s normal. My heart becomes weak when this beauty stands before it.  

It’s her. My Lord it’s her. It’s the woman I wanted to see in my dreams nightly. Our eyes meet fully—time being paused in this dreamland—and I wonder why she left me at the concert within the past dream about a week ago. She grabs my hand and twirls herself under my extended arm, smiling the entire time, teasing me, squeezing my hand when she comes out of the turn. I want to smile, but I can’t. I want this to be real, but it’s not.  

And I plead: ‘Let me lead you.’  

She disappears in my arms. And then I walk slowly down the hall, lost in the nothingness I usually find while I’m awake.