I'm walking in a rural area, along a road....think New England versus Mississippi. The road seen from a helicopter is a huge imperfect circle. I'm walking home, by way of the antique shops.
All the shops are doing badly, what with the economy the way it is and all... I spend quite a bit of time looking over various eccentric antique instruments that are all priced in the $100-300 range. I really want this strange radio-organ that can be best described as a 1940's style console radio mixed with a hammond organ.
I'm not sure if I can afford it though. I also feel like I'm insulting my neighbors, like buying the thing would be some bizarre act of charity.
I don't buy it. Some other things happen. Something about a little boy who lives in the store.
I'm sitting with a bunch of women, my co-workers. We're all talking about our diets, and laughing about how much water we are all drinking. When we get up there's interminable chatter about nobody forgetting their water.
It's a good time.
I'm driving around a college town reminiscent of Orlando with my mother. I have a date later, and I'm nervous about it. I also need to get the books I need for the class I'll be taking with Dr. Orvell. The road layout is incredibly confusing and twisty, but we don't get lost and it's never an issue.
In the bookstore, I'm more concerned about being able to brush my teeth before my date than I am about the books, but I mask it by pretending to be irritated about how many books I need to buy. The books are comically large, the size of medieval tomes. Several of them are comic books that I have owned in the past but lost.
I'm in the car with someone, and we're on yet another errand. They get out of the car to get a menu from the restaurant where I'll be eating later with Chris and Angela. I'm supposed to pick Angela up at 8, Chris will meet us at the restaurant. I'm parked curbside and the begin speeding up the curb in order to dislodge something from the side of the car, and then speed backwards to the place I was concerned by how far I had driven.
The menu is given to me. It is a hardbound book of about 300 pages. Every possible variation of asian cuisine is enumerated inside, with many photographs.
I'm with Chuck. We're in the foyer of his parents' apartment/restaurant. As they greet us, I realize that the father is vietnamese, but his mother is the mother of a man I know named Nicos (she is greek). The Father asks us if we would like coktails. Chuck asks him if he could have a Screwdriver, but wants the orange juice to be mixed with orange soda first.
Chuck's father becomes angry and says "Now I know why you can never pay your rent." I jump to Chuck's rescue, trying to explain that I'd had Orange Juice and Soda mixed as a child and it was very good. This seems to diffuse the situation.
Chuck and I walk out on to the balcony. Eileen is on the third floor of the apartment building mowing her lawn. She asks me to send Chuck up to help her for a second, which I do. After Chuck is gone, she tries to offer me money for sending Chuck, but I politely refuse explaioning that I would take it if I was going to rake her lawn again, but this is nothing.
Back inside I'm sitting with Angela and her mother, who is also Nicos' mother. We are making smalltalk, when Angela's mother non sequiters into a bit about how Angela will never get married.
Angela is gone, and I'm talking to the mother about how I need to pick her up at 8 for dinner. I panic when I realize that it's 8:40 and I haven't done so. It resolves quickly when I realize that we are in the restaurant and Angela is already there. I begin rambling to the mother about how Angela makes me nervous, unlike other women. I tell her that I'm like a little kid, or a man from the fifties. This pleases her.
I walk around the aprtment/restaurant and the decor is a bad imitation of an Indian palace, as if attempted by high schoolers for a play. I have a conversation with a bodiless voice about the quality of the set. We speculate that this is a science fiction movie about an India that never was, or perhaps it's a historical period that we're unaware of.
I see Angela walking around the halls, but don't interact with her.
I run into the mother again, who is now an African woman. We have a converation that I can't remember.
Chris and I have opened a health club. Our customers are compaining frequently because we keep changing the config file. The walls keep flipping between brick and stone, and our target market keeps switching between heterosexuals and homosexuals.
This has nothing to do with our own ambivalence and everything to do with the fact that we don't understand the config file. We just keep changing lines randomly, and that's what happens. We are only trying to get the thing up and running properly.
At one point, I change a few lines and the club turns into a ruined castle on a hill. I'm not sure if I ever managed to change it back.
The first thing I remember is a road winding up an incline, riding the crest of a long but not steep hill. There is a fair amount of congestion, mostly tour buses and cyclists. It's not unheard of in Fairmount Park, on a Saturday. It's spring, or early summer. The air is fragrant, and the sun keeps getting in my eyes.
I'm on foot.
I'm in a medieval japanese courtyard, maybe the residence of a lesser functionary or a successful merchant. The sandy yard is raked. I'm sneaking around, trying not to be seen. I'm looking for something.
I'm inside, standing on a tatami mat floor... I'm not sure if the interior was decorated in authentic or mid-1980s japanese style. A wiry old man is in front of me; he has a knife. He's a gangster, or a criminal or something. I'm sure he's an enemy. He's standing close, menacing me.
I have a gun, pointed at his stomach. I fire five or six times into his torso, and his face gets all twisted up in pain. He drops.
I look at the gun in my hand, and I think "That was impulsive. There may be more of them and I might not have any more bullets."