In his dream Imaginary Keith steps between some bullies who are picking on some sort of handicapped kid.  The kid talks slow and has an arm so badly misshapen that it could only happen in a dream.  The kid’s arm looks more like a catapult then a human limb, but in a non-functional sort of way.  As I sit on the edge of the bed, watching Imaginary Keith dream, I can’t help but think.  Nature can be cruel, but imagination always plays trump.  Imaginary Keith, in his dream imagination, has cut the poor kid no slack.

I watch Imaginary Keith square up, ready for a fight, telling the boys to back down.  But emotions are high and the bullies don’t back down, and soon Imaginary Keith is being pounded.  The kid with the catapult arm has slipped away somewhere, but the pounding continues.  Imaginary Keith, champion of the small and weak, is really getting walloped.

At first, I find myself thinking that it’s a shame that we can’t be safe in our own dreams.  A real shame that our days insist on following us into our nights.  Wouldn’t it be restful, I think, if our actions during the day were completely separate from our actions at night?  Wouldn’t it be easier if our minds were split in two - the day mind not knowing of the night mind, and vice versa?  Wouldn’t that be better?

But then, as I watched the bullies continue to pound on poor Imaginary Keith, I couldn’t help but wonder what it is that the president dreams about.  What happens to George at night?  Does his day follow him into the night, or has he somehow figured out a way to separate the two?  Which side of the pounding is he on when he dreams?

No, two separate minds wouldn’t be restful at all.  It’d be too much like looking the other way, which never, ever works.  I’ve tried it, but something always slips in.  No, we need our days to follow us into the nights.  We need to face ourselves.  We need to toss and turn and wake up sweating, desperate for a way to change. 

Ironically, I don’t think we’ll ever sleep until we somehow wake up.

Hints of Imaginary Keith’s dream were still on his face as he slowly ate a bowl of oatmeal this morning.  Hints of being a prisoner of war and watching people die slowly from dysentery, starvation, and neglect as they all think of an impossible escape.  Hints of his job in the prison camp, which was to toss one book after another up to another prisoner on a high platform, who would then turn and toss the book back down into a big fire, kept alive by the unending supply of books.  In Imaginary Keith’s eyes, I can see the part of the dream where he risks his life to hide a dictionary, so that he has something to read later, when his shift is over.  I see in his eyes the pain as the prison guard finds the book and rips off the cover, throws it in the fire, and then hands the book back to Imaginary Keith.

It’s sort of hard to imagine, but if you can picture Borders being turned into a gulag you’re halfway there.

In the end, none of it matters, as both prisoners and guards see that they have been labeled expendable - a large bomb, as big as a truck, is seen sitting next to the burning pile of books.  No one knows where it has come from or how it got there, but everyone in the dream knows exactly who it was that put it there.

The timer on the bomb is ticking down, and at first glance, shows just under three minutes until detonation.  There is no where to run.  Even if the prisoners had the strength, there is no time to get far enough away.  In Imaginary Keith’s eyes, I can see the part of the dream where he runs his hand over the dictionary, feeling for the missing cover.  I can see him focus in on the book, blocking out the madness all around him, until he collapses to the ground.  And then I see him open the book, and watch as his finger slowly moves down the page, searching for a word he doesn’t even know he is looking for.

Dreaming of winning a lottery is more tiring then you might imagine.  You toss and turn all night, thinking of a thousand ways to give away so much money.  In the morning, when you finally wake up, not only are you very tired, but you’re still broke.

And then it hits you.  If you ever do win the lottery, you will invent a game called Tired and Broke, which you will pass out to everyone all over the world when they have a baby, like some people do now with cigars.  You will have so much money that you will buy the Gideon Bible Company, so that every tiny little free Bible in the world can be replaced with your new game.  Travelers, alone and feeling forgotten, will be drawn together, as they shuffle around on the concrete walkways of their cheap motel, looking out over the parking lot for someone who wants to play.

For two hours I drift in and out of sleep.  Dozens, maybe even a hundred dreams pass through my head, all unconnected with each other, yet somehow tiny magnifications of my waking life.  I wake after each dream, enough to know only that I am dreaming, then roll over, pulling the blankets tight to keep the cold, fan air from reaching in and waking me, and fall back asleep.

It is literally a dream job.  I am at work.  From 5 to 7 it is my job to dream, and I attack my job with enthusiasm.  I love my job.  I must work fast.  So many dreams.  So little time.

I meet a friend at an airport, unexpectedly. My plane is boarding and he is heading across the lobby, back to his boys.  Necessity pulls us apart, but we are still smiling and laughing.  I watch him disappear behind a door, then walk through the gates.

Layers of something.  Soft to the touch. Cotton towels, maybe.  White towels, between thicker layers of color.  Yellow and light green.

I step gently onto the stack of hay, hoping to reach some cobwebs high in the eaves of a house.  A friend has me by the wrist, but it is not enough. The hay gives loose and I fall, pulling my friend over with me.  But we twist and jump, and the hay cushions our landing.

Water is running and shooting up in the air, all around me.  It is like a river cast in cement.  I walk carefully across, stepping from concrete stone to concrete stone. I wake, dry, missing both the sound and the mist in my face.

As I slip my laptop into it’s bag I notice that it has been switched.  It looks the same, but is smaller.  Someone has gone to great lengths to deceive me. I sneak around the dream, looking for my laptop and the person who has made the switch.  I think of my stories, in someone else’s hands.  When I wake up, it is hard to know whether I feel determined or scared.