Dream Eight: 1341.

I came to on an other planet. I felt hungover. I guess that this must have been how the writers for Great Glass Elevator felt when they penned their psychedelic hit “Drunk on Another Planet”. A little water droplet fell from the sky, waking me from sleep in a false awakening. I brushed it from my eye and I beheld Sue.

Happy Chang’s had relocated to an other solar system. I think it was Altarf or something. It was insanely bright, but we were far from it. And it was night.

Sue explained. At some point she was approached by a paranormal investigator, disguised as a Drug Enforcement Agent, who confided in her that there were extraterrestrials in their very home town. He offered her husband release from prison for the Health Code violations if she complied with his project. She agreed to act as human bait for the Aliens. But when she met them she was converted. They came from a planet that had for nineteen thousand million years (19,000,000,000) suffered from suicidal depression. Happy Chang’s was relocated to this planet plagued by sadness in order to heal it.

Sue and I took a transport towards the City Hospital in order to visit the White Knight. As we rode a mechanical Trilobite over the landscape, I realized that we were in the midst of the largest junk yard that I had seen since Wall-E. She explained to me that this entire Nation was an enormous Landfill for other planets to dump their refuse into. Hence its Capital City was called Garbage. And we were on our way there.

Upon arrival to Garbage National Hospital, we were escorted by two twin robots up two separate spiral staircases that interlaced like a double-helix. Finally we reached a dome-shaped room who[se] exterior, save for the floor, of course, was entirely translucent to the skyline. At its center lay the White Knight, writhing in restraints as various instruments operated upon him with laser beams. Sue explained to me that his D.N.A. was being re-written. He would be reborn a more loyal friend and potent ally, and his betrayal of Earth would be pardoned because Earth had herself betrayed its people, and to be loyal to the disloyal is foolish and only obligates us, by the example that it sets, to sacrifice ourselves for those who had betrayed us.

I asked Sue how she felt living in Garbage Nation on Planet Xanax. (A reference of course to the Radiohead song that was supposed originally to have been so entitled.) She laughed and told me that happiness is no good if you do not share it. I accepted that.

Later, I was granted access to an Observatory. Here there was a Library and a Computer entirely for my use. The other planets had donated it as mere refuse. Upon this rock I built my Church. I had not given up yet on Earth. I vowed to one day come back down to Earth and to finish the Chess Game. And this time, I would play for keeps; no stalemates. I had too much to avenge.

This much was my initial theory:

WHITE:

Rook One: Rob.

Knight Two:

Bishop Three: Stephanie.

White Queen: Awilda.

White King: Arthur.

Bishop Six: Joker?

Knight Seven:

Rook Eight: Mike.

BLACK:

Rook One:

Knight Two: The Blackened Knight. (convert.)

Bishop Three: Stephanie. (convert.)

Black Queen: Alanna?

Black King: Dmytri.

Bishop Six: Joker?

Knight Seven: Kyle?

Rook Eight:

After some time, I gave up trying to figure it all out. But upon waking I realized that Arthur had not even made an appearance in this DREAM SERIES. So I revised my chart. Here it is reproduced, to the best of my ability:

(The waking was of course a false awakening. I woke up next to the White Knight. I returned to the Observatory. Dawn was breaking; it would be fatal to stay here for long. I knew what I had to do, though. I began by typing up my final guesses:)

WHITE:

Rook One: Rob.

Knight Two: The Blackened Knight,=.

Bishop Three: Stephanie.

White Queen: Bianca.

White King: Kresten.

Bishop Six: Joker.

Knight Seven: The White Knight.

Rook Eight: Mike.

BLACK:

Rook One: Kyle.

Knight Two: The Blackened Knight. (convert.)

Bishop Three: Stephanie. (convert.)

Black Queen: Alanna.

Black King: Dmytri.

Bishop Six: Joker. (double-agent.)

Knight Seven: The White Knight. (Convert.)

Rook Eight: Sue.

It was the best that I could do. As azure light swam in I created a flow chart. I had to figure out how all of this had happened. Again: I reproduce it for you now only to the best of my Earthly Ability:

1.        Rob and I had to rescue the dogs.

2.      Kresten followed us.

3.      We lost Kresten’s tail.

4.      He was picked up by the Joker.

5.      The Joker, urged by Kresten, began to follow us.

6.      If the Joker was Anthony, which would make sense considering that Anthony had dreamt of driving the same van, then Anthony did this prior to visiting the Theatre. (Again: pardon the revision. At least I did not revise the chronology.)

7.       After the flood Anthony was picked up again by Kresten. Around this time he acquired a Flame Thrower.

8.      The van was a Police Van, so they had to keep it out of sight of Schrader. They waited for Schrader to leave before they paid a visit to the Antique Disposition.

9.      Shortly thereafter they spotted me and W.K. trying to leave. They identified those bikes as their own. At some point (again: pardon me.) their bikes, which appeared in Anthony’s Dream, were stolen from the Van and sold to a Pawn Shop.

10.   They pursued us. Anthony shot Kresten in the face. He ran over the Head of the Scapegoat. Kresten became the Faceless Man. Anthony, dressed as the Joker, escaped.

11.      The faceless man found some means of Time Travel. Perhaps Anthony showed it to him when he found out how to warp space-time in His Dream, so that he could go back to his old Elementary School, seeing it EXACTLY AS IT HAD BEEN WHEN HE LEFT IT, (proving, granted that Chaparral could afford renovations since we graduated from it, that he had literally travelled back in time) and then warp into the Theatre.

12.    Kresten went back in time through the same portal so that he could be in the Theatre on the night of the Performance. His intent: to assassinate Rob.

13.    Having failed to do so, he traveled further back in order to stage a dognapping that would set all of these events in motion. He all so tailed Mike, the other rook, and slashed his tires. He thought that this would undo history. But that only reflected his own, rigid causal view of time. In fact, he had only produced what was inevitable. A determinist would theoretically understand this. But in reality it was never Determinism but rather Teleological Progression that had produced these events. Reality did not come causally OUT of the past INTO the Future; it came FROM THE FUTURE INTO THE PAST. Hence Kresten’s time-traveling produced the foundation for its own occurrence IN THE PAST.

I had yet to figure out what all of this had to do with Korea. At this moment, someone barged into the Library that I would never have expected: my parents. They were out of rehab, and they told me to come home. I told him that I did not want to, lying, of course, because I intended to without their knowledge or interference. Mother told me that Pumpkin had gotten better. The shot had only ever been medicine for his leg to heal.

As she spoke her face came ablaze. The Sun Altarf was Rising. I told my parents, laughing manically, that everything would be all right. “I will fight no more forever. I’m gonna be perfect from now on.” So relieved was I that I would not move until we were all swallowed in Blazing White Light.

And I awoke.

Dm.A.A.