WHAT DREAMS MAY COME:

A small group of Ewoks was trapped near a cosmetics counter on the upper level of a multi-tiered mall with dozens of escalators. Battle droids and stormtroopers were closing in on the Ewoks, so we Jedi Knights had to move fast. I leapt into battle at the far left of the Jedi flank, coming up against a group of stormtroopers moving up one of the escalators. I reached out with the Force, reversing the escalator control and sending them back down to the ground level. At that point, I had to deflect some red-hot blaster bolts from a battle droid that was menacing the Ewoks just a few feet to my left. I noticed that a group of gnome-like creatures were moving up another escalator, igniting tiny lightsabers as they did so. I tried to reach out with the Force to knock them backward, but the little guys were somehow protected!

With my blue lightsaber wailing, I leapt into the air and fell for several seconds (Note: As I mentioned, falling is the usual method I conjure to get myself out of a dream I dislike. The drawback is that if I find myself falling in the middle of a good dream, I tend to wake up. Miraculously, the part of me that wanted to keep dreaming exerted enough willpower to draw me fully back into the vision). Using the Force to slow my descent, I landed lightly many stories below the point I had jumped from. There I found a black-haired female warrior, looking almost but not quite like a dark clone of my girlfriend, attacking me with a foot-long syringe full of ominous green liquid. We dueled for several moments before I sliced the syringe in half and cornered her with a hurt expression on my face. "That was really, really mean," I said. Up above me, the Ewoks were hooting in victory as other Jedi led them out through a broken skylight. The day was won.

I was at a musem of some sort, there to see the premiere of a new film called Out of Time. The film was composed of a series of vignettes showing the cultural effects of alterations at various points in America's history. One of the highlights was a book called Buy a Piece of Hitler!by Edward R. Murrow, evangelizing the benefits of making financial investments in the "efficient" Third Reich. Another section of the film dealt with the exploits of the famous gunslinger George Custer, whose autopsy had revealed that the size of the brain that controlled his reflexes was ten times too large, explaining his deadly speed with a six-gun. After the film ended, I went out into the lobby and saw that one of the museum attendants was standing over a large table of souvenir posters and tie-in novels.

It turned out that the novel and the film were both the latest work of Stephen King, conceived as a linked work of art whose full subtelty and nuance could only be experienced if one first saw the film and then read the book. For some reason, it wouldn't work the other way around. I began to get nervous, and asked the museum attendant if King was actually hanging around the museum. The attendant nodded, but didn't know exactly where. This both intrigued and frightened me, and I went looking for him.

Just beneath the museum was a large hospital waiting room, and I thought I saw King duck down a corridor beyond it, just a few steps ahead of me. Hot in pursuit, I rounded the corner to find that a small owl with snow-white feathers and beautiful emerald eyes was fluttering toward me. I cautiously held out my left hand, and the owl landed on it, sincking its talons into my skin almost hard enough to draw blood. The bird hooted, perched in a dignified fashion, and steadfastly refused to leave. I asked it, hesitatingly, "Where did Stephen King go?" It looked at me for several seconds, then flipped its head backwards, revealing that its stretched-out neck was covered in a vivid aquamarine geometric pattern that pulsed and shifted in an incredibly beautiful fashion.

I carried the owl back into the waiting room, and sensed the eyes of all the patients on me. In my right hand, I now held up a single white feather for all to see. The owl stretched out and nipped at it, but not a single talon left my skin. I began asking the waiting patients where King was, and one of them smiled knowingly at me. "You know where he went," the old man said.

"Do I?"

"Of course you do. You're in one of his books."

At that moment, it was suddenly obvious. I was inside a Stephen King novel. It all made perfect sense. Yet there was something more, something beyond that.

"There's something else, old man."

"Well, of course there is."

"How did you know we're in a Stephen King novel?"

"I didn't. You did. You made me tell you."

"Then... that would mean..."

"Yes, go on..."

"I'm dreaming I'm in a Stephen King Novel. That's why you're me. That's why I know. That's why the answer wasn't complete."

At this, the old man nodded. Satisfied with my control over the situation, I willed myself to wake up. My feet left the floor, and I floated gently into blackness. When my eyes snapped open in the real world, I found my cat staring at me from two inches in front of my nose. She stretched out her paw and gently thwapped my nose, as though rebuking me for my overly-complex human dreams. Some days, weirdness abounds.

"I'm looking for my miniature kittens," she said. "They escaped from their book."

I informed her that the miniature kittens in question were hiding under the couch.

"Oh, no!" She whispered. "They're looking for the portal!"

Mr. Mazere was an elderly, brown-skinned man with no hair and deep, soulful eyes. He appeared somewhat infirm, and he was conducting business from his bed, wrapped up in a bright orange blanket. As I entered, he glared at me with ill-concealed distaste, and the whole room seemed to resonate with a strange buzzing. I glanced up and was shocked to see that the domed ceiling was all but filled with a gigantic insect hive, crafted by human-sized wasps that hovered without visibly flapping their wings. These creatures seemed to be attending Mr. Mazere, and watching his proceedings with interest.

A worried young man was standing by the side of the bed, holding out a swaddled infant for Mr. Mazere to inspect. The old man stared at the baby stoically for some time. Finally, he said, "Let the child have a family. He will wear the blue of Susio."

Appearing relieved, the man holding the baby bowed to Mr. Mazere and pulled a blue cloth from his robes. He immediately removed the infant's blanket and replaced it with the blue one. As he left the room, Mr. Mazere regarded me again. This time, his demeanor seemed much warmer.

"Ah, you," he said. "Welcome. This is the first time, I believe?"

I nodded. He gave a faint smile and beckoned me closer. As he did so, there was a movement through the air above my head and a terrible griding noise. Mr. Mazere looked alarmed for a split second as the hive directly above his bed was torn in half by an unseen force. "An invisible shark!" Mazere cried. I ducked.

A few moments later, I looked up to see several of the wasp-creatures floating serenely just a few feet above my head. "The danger is past," one of them buzzed. "The flying shark is gone."

Before my eyes, the damaged hive turned itself inside out, shuffled its interior components, and neatly knit itself back together.

"I have always been somewhat disappointed by human houses, that they could not repair themselves so easily," chuckled a deep voice from within the hive. Mr. Mazere inclined his head in agreement.

"Why don't you go look at the terrariums?" He suggested. "I'm about to receive my grandchildren."

As he said this, several adults and four children materialized out of the wall across from his bed. As the children ran to greet their grandfather, I left the room.

The terrariums he referred to were gigantic glass cages kept on a mile-long conveyor belt that circled a vast building, faced with white marble columns at least a hundred feet tall. The tops of the cages were enclosed by magical fields, locking the creatures in. There were giraffes, dinosaurs, elephants, and dozens of big cats. As I watched the giant terrariums trundling past, I discovered that the animals displayed within them could speak. I struck up a conversation with a jaguar whose black-spotted fur was otherwise pearl white.

"It's a pretty peaceful life, out here on the terrariums," it said. "Just a few minutes ago, though, something hit the side of my cage. I couldn't see anything, but the force was there."

Suddenly uneasy, I remembered the invisible flying shark. I mentioned this to the jaguar, and it hissed.

"Those damn things are paid assassins! They're too expensive for any but the most important people!"

Instantly, there was a rush of air and a rippling movement through the air inside the cage. A transparent shape launched itself at the jaguar, which barely got out of the way. The transparent mass somehow melded magically through the glass wall of the cage and screamed off into the sky.

"Shark!" I yelled.

I began running back to Mr. Mazere's apartments, desperate to warn him that the shark was still flying around. A blood-curdling scream reached my ears from that direction, and I exerted myself to reach him in time. I never did, for I woke up a split-second later.

We crossed an asphalt-topped alley and came to a strange pile of battered electronic equipment. The commander fumbled with dials and switches while I climbed on top of a doghouse and held up some sort of aerial. It had metal components, but it was mostly made out of rickety, water-rotted bamboo. I swept the aerial in an arc around our position while the commander studied whatever data the device was providing. "There," he whispered, "I've picked something up across the street."

Gazing out into the night, I soon made out the shape of a young boy, no older than twelve, with a blond crewcut and a pair of mirrored sunglasses. He crouched beside a house, eyeing us warily.

"This neighborhood is crawling with them," my commander growled.

"Ice cave?" I asked.

The guide gestured to a spot about a hundred feet away, where the sandy expanse of the beach was interrupted by a jutting, rocky protrusion several yards long and equally wide. Dark chunks of ice were floating in the water near it (despite the summery heat), along with several wet-suited swimmers. "The ice cave stays frozen year-round. People like to swim into it and around it where the little icebergs mingle with the warm water."

Intrigued, I took off my shoes and headed into the water to see for myself. As I did so, night fell with an eerie suddenness, and the water grew dark. I swam in the direction of the ice cave, which was now barely visible as a black maw in the post-twilight haze. I bumped into objects that tumbled and rotated in the water beneath me- ice, I presumed, though nowhere near as cold as I would have expected. In short order, these objects jumbled together too thickly for me to make any further progress toward the cave, and with some disappointment I swam back out a ways and tried to return to the beach. A hostile current began dragging at me then, pulling me further out despite my efforts. Trying to avoid panic, I began swimming parallel to the dimly visible beach, which was perhaps twenty yards away. I mumbled to myself that I would never vacation in California again.

I suddenly find a long black blade in one of my hands, and although I remain in the water, I no longer need to swim. The blade fills me with some sort of buoyancy, and it fills me with purpose. I have a role to play in the battle around me... I have to use the blade to kill a god. "Tyrmandir!" I scream for no apparent reason, "Tyrmandir!" I suddenly decide that I want to play no part in the battle around me... that I will kill a god if I must, but a god of my own choosing. Relaxing, I let the buoyancy of the blade lift me out of the water and toward the clouds. I can see fleets of ships tossing on the waters below me as I ascend, and someone screams in frustration as I abandon whatever cause brought me here.

After we have been at this fruitless task for some time, a squad of police officers appears, surrounding us and ordering us to come with them. We are marched back down the steps and into an underground passage, lit with flickering torches. My father joins us in this tunnel, though he isn't dressed as an officer and he says nothing.

We are taken into a massive underground lounge where the King of Police Officers presides from a bronze throne. He looks like Willem Defoe with his slender build and sly smile, and his eyes are as cruel as a serpent's. The lounge is decorated with red tapestries, and the King wears a deep scarlet cloak over his uniform.

"Wouldn't purple be a more appropriate color for a king?" I ask.

"Purple," replies the King of Police Officers, "is a gay color for gay people."

"Not so," I say, "purple has traditionally been a symbol of royalty in..."

"Why is it," the King asks in a cold voice, "that gay people had to go and ruin that word for the rest of us? It used to be a perfectly acceptable term to use in conversation."

"I'm sure I don't know," I reply.

"Well, then," the King says with a satisfied smile, "time for a fight. For you, it's Fatso, I think."

A hulking police officer with a belly like a pickle-barrel steps out of the shadows, grinning eagerly. He throws a rapier at my feet and assumes a dueling position with his own. I gingerly pick up the blade, and the fight is on.

Despite "Fatso's" bulk, he moves with alarming speed, and I have to pour all of my concentration into the duel. Our blades cross and dart, and we bump into each other several times. He parries each of my thrusts, and I grow increasingly desperate. Finally, one of his own mistimed lunges carries him onto the point of my blade, which sinks in several inches and draws a deep welling of blood. "Fatso" falls to his knees and I face the King, who nods reluctantly at me. He gives a signal, and my father, the teenagers, and I are free to go.

This time, the High City is mostly Duluth. The day is summery, and warm breezes blow. Jenny, myself, and four of our friends (Sean Poeschl, Steph Drinkard, Jesse Aubart, and Cole Sarar) have all come to a gigantic waterpark to go SCUBA diving in the "lazy river" (for those unfamiliar with these things, they are large oval pools in which a gentle current keeps swimmers and rafts circulating at an easy pace). This particular lazy river is about a mile in circumference, and it lies in the shadow of a number of twisty, curving skyscrapers. Everyone else is ready to go, but I am deeply upset because my wetsuit has a serious defect- it's bright purple. Everyone else gets sober black, and I have to look like a gigantic swimming gummi bear. Fortunately for my pride, I wake up before I actually have to get in the water.

Suddenly, a pack of howling brown monkeys appears on one side of the arena, dashes across the ice, and attacks the video camera filming the game. As they are busily dismantling it and screeching at the cameraman, I decide to leave. On my walk home, the gentle suburban terrain of Woodbury becomes a vast Tibetan plateau. The road disappears, and the view around me becomes dominated by snow-capped mountains and wide sunless valleys. Seriously confused, I drop to my knees and close my eyes, concentrating.

In another few minutes, the mountains have disappeared, and I am making my way down a wooden walkway toward a very small island. A huge wooden structure dominates this island, wrapped and threaded with walkways, some of which disappear entirely or fold upon themselves at bizarre angles. The Moebius Fort,I think to myself. I enter the fort, and am not surprised to see Mr. and Mrs. Howell (of Gilligan's Islandfame) standing there.

"You'd better be careful," I tell them, "someone else has followed me back to the island. A thief."

They gasp and hurry off to their room, while I climb one of the recursive walkways and enter mine. A shadow on the wall reveals the presence of a stalker close behind me... but as I turn and prepare to reveal the identity of the mysterious stranger, I wake up...

Suddenly, I'm back in the real world, and there's serious trouble down at my favorite restaurant. The Two Brothers are robbing the place, beating up the customers with their incredible kung fu skills. I can't take them on my own, so I grab my friend Wing and we run to my grandma's house, where our kung fu instructor is eating christmas candy in the basement. "You don't need my help to take out the Two Brothers," he says as he reads the morning paper, "just eat some of these chocolates. I've got more than I need."

Wing and I both dig in to the box of chocolates, and in just a few moments my hands are suffused with rippling azure flames.

"My hands are alive with kung fu fire!" I cry. Wing nods excitedly- his hands are the same way. We race off to do battle with the Two Brothers. At the restaurant, we burst in through the door and perform a double flying kick that knocks the Two Brothers on their asses. When they leap back up and attempt to fight us, our blue fire punches drop them in their tracks. The customers start cheering, but the situation suddenly worsens. The Two Sisters show up, and their ninja skills far exceed the arts of the Two Brothers.

Each of the Sisters runs up walls and across the ceiling, and Wing and I are so distracted during the fight with them that our blue fire begins to go out. As it does, the Sisters begin to hit harder and simultaneously feel less effect from our blows. Flailing desperately against one of them, I am pressed back into a corner. I flip myself through the air and land on her back, pummeling the back of her head as hard as I can. The punches don't appear to harm her, but they certainly irritate her. She flails wildly, unable to reach me with her sword or her fists. I hate ninjas.

As we passed the cash registers, I distracted the cashier and deftly removed several hundred dollars from one of the drawers. "I've been telling people for years that security around here is terrible," I told Jesse as I pocketed the money. "I'm going to mail this to the owner with a note telling him how easily I got it."

Jesse agreed that this was a good idea, and after his shift ended we decided to waste some time at a nearby toy store. The store took up six stories in a renovated brownstone apartment complex. The walls and floors were a gentle lavender, and irregularly-sized pits gaped in the floors. The toys were displayed in deep, glass-covered wall niches, usually surrounded by pits or electrical barriers. Jesse and I went up to the fifth floor, but once we stepped off the elevator it disappeared. Irritated, we decided that jumping into one of the floor holes was probably the fastest way to return to the lobby. As we plunged downward, the dream ended.

Eventually I received a small sea sled of my own and we set off. The sea sleds rode about two feet under the surface, leaving us seated comfortably on them, burrowing through the wavetops at chest level. I guessed that we were moving at about thirty miles per hour. Gray shapes flew past in the dim waters beneath my feet, and off to the left I got the impression that an orca was following us, keeping a respectful distance. The kids clinging to the back of the other sled eventually pulled little lunches out of waterproof sacks and ate them carefully.

After hours of comfortable travel across the sea, we reached a large floating structure made entirely out of white concrete. This was my destination, so I tethered my sea sled to a small dock and waved good-bye to the vacationing family. When I entered the white building, I discovered that it was a gigantic Rainbow Foods with a floor of ice. The cast of -Star Trek: Voyager- was playing hockey up and down the aisles.

At first, I was afraid to spend more than a few minutes on the wobbly boards of the walkway. Eventually I noticed another, smaller wooden path about ten feet down and to the side of the platform I stood on. Summoning my courage, I climbed the safety rail and fell down to the second path. Much to my surprise, it was sturdier than the one above it. I decided to follow it for some time, and after a long walk I arrived at a large black building. Once inside, I discovered that it was laid out like an indoor shopping mall. I proceeded into a large, connected set of rooms that looked like a series of bookstores. Each room had a crowd of people sitting in padded chairs and being led in spirited discussions about a variety of literary topics. Each room's topic was clearly displayed on a large banner, and I was very pleased to find a room marked SCIENCE FICTION/DUNE. Realizing that some sort of class or workshop was in progress, I became embarrassed at my interruption and decided to leave, making a note to come back later.

I wandered to the far end of the mall complex, and found myself in a hall between a large, open cafeteria space and a smoke-filled pool hall. The cafeteria was full of black-clad teenagers, playing some sort of roleplaying game that involved hitting each other with flexible, padded sacks of soft stuffing. I entered the smoky pool hall instead. At the back of the hall was a glass door leading to a vast, dark dance hall. Inside, dozens of sweaty fat people in complex but dingy costumes were doing an unenthusiastic "chicken dance." Bemused, I turned to leave and found my way blocked by a thin, sallow man in his forties or fifties. He had a bright red silk shirt, a dirty cowboy hat, and a charcoal-gray moustache. "Fuck you," was his only comment after he sized me up.

"Well... fuck you too!" was my brilliant retort. After that, the man left hurriedly. I followed him out of the hall and past the game-playing hooligans, determined to get back to the literary discussions. On my way down the hall, I saw the man in the red shirt exit a bathroom, paying little attention to me. "For an older guy, you sure have a bad attitude!" I shouted at him. He didn’t answer.

Eventually, I was back in front of the rooms where the discussions were being held. I found myself distracted by a short, cheerful Asian man who ran a food stand right outside the sci-fi literature workshop. He was ladling dollops of white and pink ice cream onto triangular waffles, then pressing the waffles together and cooking them in an open flame for several minutes. This seemed strangely appealing, and I decided to purchase one. For some reason, the man working the grill repeatedly tried to get me to pay $2000 for my waffle treat, but I refused, unable to tell whether he was joking or not. Eventually, I settled on a decent price and asked, somewhat embarrassedly, how much it cost to join the literary workshops. He replied that payment was optional, and anyone was welcome to join. He then showed me the latest small-press anthology put out by students of the workshop. It was detective fiction, about a character called "The Green Marder." I thought perhaps they might have meant to spell it, "Marauder." Soon after that, I woke up and never did get my waffle/ice cream thing.