Haunted Living Space

L. and I are going to bed in our apartment. It is a space which seems to be like a classroom or office--windows everywhere with metal blinds, and linoleum tile flooring. After we have turned off the lights I think that I hear a noise. I get out of bed and go towards the front door--I see a human-shaped shadow and I lunge at it. But there is nothing there, and I accidentally knock over one of my bass guitars that is cluttering up the space near the entryway. I curse it loudly as I re-tighten the stand that was holding it. As I do I realize that I've left L. alone and that there's someone in the bedroom. I run back--I see someone sitting on the bed right at L.'s feet--I grab him by the legs and yank him onto the floor, hoping to stun him. But again I am deceived--it's just a pair of pants or a blanket or something that was lying on the bed. L. wakes up. She says, why have you opened the windows? I have not, I say. I turn around, and see that the blinds, which were all closed when I left the bedroom, are all now wide open.

Real Estate

L and I are walking into a bank to deliver a large stack of papers comprising a mortgage application. We're having second thoughts about the house, I suggest we go look at it one more time, since it's just across the street. We walk over. It is oddly situated, being the lone house in a business district, but it also overlooks the harbor. Indeed, inside on the second floor there are sweeping views of the water from the main bedroom. We eventually settle down on the floor of the den watching television, while the current owners of the house wander around, seemingly not noticing or caring that we're there. Later we walk downstairs and then outside into the yard, where we discover that we're under a major freeway overpass, and sketchy characters are wandering around. I had liked the house to this point, but now it seems that we should definitely think twice.

Travel Light

In Edinburgh I arrive at a gathering. I soon realize that I might have missed my flight. We check my tickets and see that I have just under an hour to make it. We dash to the airport and I walk up to a deserted counter. The woman there examines my ticket and announces that the particular flight I was on has been cancelled. Not to worry though, it's a regional flight and they leave every hour or so. I can wait in the transit lounge. I take my bags to the lounge, and sit around and wait. There is a little girl running around. I meet her parents just as they are called to report for their flight and discover via that announcement that her father teaches at the same college as my father. He knows him, "He's our provost," he says, and I say yes, that's him, though in fact this is news to me. We get on the bus that will take us to our aircraft.

Strange Retreat

We drive into a small complex in the woods--a road lined with cabins on either side. It's a kind of a counter-cultural hub of odd characters, so I'm surprised when we get out of the car and start to unpack that I look to my left and see J. sitting on the porch of one of the cabins. I sit with him and ask about his new baby and spouse--he says they're inside.

I'm going bald. At first I think it's in kind of an odd way, but then I decide it is just standard male pattern baldness. "Oh well," I think, "I guess it is time to start shaving my head."

It Wasn't A Dream

Standing in a dark bathroom, I am seeing a long tunnel of infinite, ever changing tiny green lights. I feel as if I am opening my eyes, but they are closed. I seem to be slowly spining clockwise, but I am standing on the ground. I feel the same sense of powerful, primal fear, the one I've been trying to overcome. I'm telling myself I will be safe, but I think about L. and don't quite believe it. My heart is pounding. I tell myself, "Don't Die." Keep going, but don't die. Don't die. Don't die.

Tiny Threads

L. is gone somehow, we have broken up. At first I am relieved, I think I just wasn't mature enough to handle the relationship yet. Then this sinking feeling arrives: yes, but what about when I am ready?

I eat a pot brownie and wander the city, into and out of stores and clubs. I decide to get a tattoo. A friend is with me. First they do the outline--it is on my shoulder or my ankle, I'm not sure. I wonder if it will hurt, and will I feel it more acutely because I'm stoned? I see the proposed colors of the image and start to regret the decision. Maybe it will be okay, though.

The Yakuza

We are out in a field next to a large concrete structure. R. is piloting a large military helicopter and suddenly starts flying towards the structure, as if chasing us. We run towards the wall. The helicopter smashes into an outcropping above us. We cower, afraid that the rotors will come flying towards us. They don't, and in the collision, the crew compartment of the helicopter is separated from the main body and falls to the ground, R. remaining unharmed. Later we discover that, in fact, R. was attempting suicide. R. hands out the obituary R. has prepared--it is a stack of papers, stapled. I look through them--they seem a little egotistical, I think. Then, of course, they are supposed to be a celebration of R.'s life, after all.

The team is meeting. As I stand up to give my daily report, I realize there is someone else talking, and I walk down the table to confront her. She seems unconcerned, I say something extremely harsh to her and tell the group that we might as well find another room to have our meeting. We all walk out. Later the team is actually the Japanese Mafia, and by confronting the person talking at our meeting I have brought terrible dishonor to our team. I sneak back into the house to collect the papers necessary to continue my work. One of my co-workers catches me, he is guarding the house and says he has been given orders to kill me on sight. But he likes me and wants to help me, so he lets me go. I thank him and start to leave. But he wants to keep telling me about how is going to let to me go. I stay for a moment to be polite, but then I run off. I am on the grounds of my high school now, clutching the papers. I run into some generic woman I know from high school. She clutches a dagger. I think she will attack me, and she slashes at my hand as I try to grab the blade. But then she plunges the knife into her chest, gives me a sly look, and then screams. They've set me up. I panic, and run away along the sidewalk with long, bounding strides.

In The Water

I am in bright clear water near a steep rocky shore. I turn and look around me and see in the middle distance several large black round blobs, which I immediately take to be Orca whales. I am filled with primal fear, but I can't escape the water and so I try to conquer it somehow. It occurs to me that I too must now be a whale.

That Old Narrative

I am reconsidering a narrative I once thought about writing: an otherwise completely ordinary (and generally untalented) math graduate student stumbles upon a brilliant result that he otherwise doesn't understand--he realizes it's brilliant, but doesn't know how he thought of it, and knows he will never discover anything like it again. I am considering what the fiction of the result will be, and come up with something about a statement of meaning, M, and its self-referential equivalent, M', and showing that there exists a perfect isomorphism between any space made up of M's and the space made up of its equivalent self-referential M-primes. Then I am considering if there actually might be something in that, when I dimly recall some other result that where if I have two functions that are "onto" from one space to the other and vice versa, I can construct an isomorphism. Or something like that, anyway.

"You Have To Face Your Fears"

L. and I return to the cave where we have stashed our stuff to find that two guys have taken it over. We are incredulous--how can they have encroached on our space? They are nonchalant. I am annoyed—I can tell immediately that these two are a type of guy I loathe. "You have to face your fears," says the more talkative of the two. He comes out of the cave, tosses a loop of rope over his shoulder, and starts rock-climbing up the face. I realize that we are on a ledge on a sheer cliff face--there may be other ways down, but the only way up is to climb. It's not far but it looks terrifying. But the other guy is doing it, so I suck it up and start climbing. The surface isn't rock, but thick tree bark. The climber above me is taking a slow route up, going side to side a lot, but I find a more direct route. I make one last push upwards, grab the top, and the other climber pulls me up. I turn around and the other guy has just climbed behind me. "L. will never make this climb," I think, but then there she is, also throwing a hand over the cliff edge and then being pulled up. We're in a national park, and we walk from the top of the cliff to the parking lot. Each party sort of dimly acknowledges each other as we go to our cars.