From: tony To: Daniel Gould Date: Saturday, November 30, 2002 12:06 PM Subject: dream A friend and I are accidentally given access to an upper office of a government building on the square of my home town. We go up there and look around, and I discover a small cardboard box with spiral notebooks in it. The notebooks are full of handwritten accounts of paranormal experiences, and most of them are marked "Eyes Only". Eventually I find a section marked "Top Secret." In a scrawl I can barely read, and that sometimes looks like German, it says, "Chapter 1: Freaking Out." I realize that this is something I absolutely have to have a copy of, so I grab the noteboook of top secret freaking out stories and run, with a black woman I just met, to the copy store. On the way, I meet the guitarist from Poison, who asks me to jam with him at a giant outdoor party where a soccer game is in progress. I accompany him a little bit on a song that he called "Delmas," and then realize that I had forgotten to go to the copy store. I also notice that since I had stolen the book, everything had started to get really weird. As I run to the copy store, I notice that all the women I pass are wearing either bikinis or nothing, and they all look really horny, and they're looking at me with googly-eyes. I ignore this because I'm in a hurry. At the copy store, I explain very carefully what needs to happen with the notebook. Don't take it apart. Don't alter it in any way. Just copy it the way it stands. And hurry! The old guy at the counter takes the book apart, uncoiling its spiral binding, and starts to feed the book through the automatic document feeder. I notice that the book held lots of receipts and cancelled checks. While the copier is operating, the old guy goes up some stairs and gets in bed. I can't believe it. The girls in line behind me wink and wiggle their asses, sometimes breaking into impromptu lesbian sex. Eventually the book is done going through the copier, and I grab it the way it is, all uncoiled and jumbled up, and I run upstairs, where the old guy is on the top bunk of a bunkbed, totally covered by a large comforter. "Hey!" I say, "Wake up! You're the only one who knows how to put this back together!" He writhes and mumbles, but refuses to get up. I realize I'm out of time, so I run back to the government building to return the book On the way, hundreds of women are lying around the square like basking seals. They proposition me as I pass, but I am too focused on my goal. As I am approaching the building, I see the Director of Government Services, a woman, coming down the sidewalk toward me. She looks grave. As she passes, she says, "What a mystery, eh?" I realize she knows about the theft, but doesn't know it was me. I can't stand it any longer. "Well, maybe not so much of a mystery," I say, and she turns around to look at me. I feel in my pocket for the book, which has turned into a key, and she realizes that I am the thief. "Oh my God," she says. "Yes," I say, "but I want to show you something first. I take the key out of my pocket, and notice that it has turned into a magnifying glass. I began to tell her about something I remembered doing, but which I had no memory of: "I was standing just over there, in front of that shop. I started messing around with the magnifying glass. At first, I thought maybe I could focus the sunlight onto the side of the shop, and burn the paint off, but it wasn't very good for that. So I stood back further, and let the beam widen out. I noticed that if I got the angle just right, and stood far enough away, the magnifying glass would project images, like a movie projector that ran on sunlight. Somehow I got the feeling that the images were being produced by the sun itself. On the front of the shop, which was in shadow due to an awning, images began to form. The first was of Jupiter. Then Saturn, big, with beautiful rings. Then people, mainly government leaders: Mao Tse Tung, Goebbels, Stalin, Winston Churchill." The sun knew everything about us. Our story was encoded in light itself. She began to cry softly, with happiness.