Reflections on an Old, Dirty Bastard:

Reflections on an Old, Dirty Bastard:

I wonder who looks up to these people. No one wants to be on the receiving end of this sort of thing. So who would dream of being on the sending end? You can’t raise people to be aggressive and competitive and call yourself a role model. So what gives? I know: the Powers that Be want to pit us against one an other. If we could unify against them, we would thrive in peace and harmony. But that this is a blatant strategy at stopping unification and choking solidarity is only one failure on one front. There is the more underlying evil: that men are NOT INTRINSICALLY COMPETITIVE. And this structure gives them an INCENTIVE and an EXCUSE to be. No one would WANT to live this Life. So when they say that we have some “agenda”, like we ONLY want to unify the masses so as to take down the Powers that Be, what the hell are they going ON about? Of COURSE we want to take down any System that would FORCE us to compete against one an other, pitting us like chickens in a competition we had not consented to begin with. That’s hardly an ULTERIOR motive. That would be a BRILLIANT Agenda, and it’s no wonder that those Powers WANT to scapegoat any one who is so brilliant as to conceive of it. But you don’t need a PLAN in order to be a Good Person. You don’t need to HAVE a Power to RESIST in order to Live a Decent Life. So how could any one be so deluded as to think that that could be our ONLY motive? Is it possible that there exists, somewhere, a sort of being, in semblance human, if not in Spirit, that would actually WANT to live this sort of Life?

Dm.A.A.

Rêve Vingt:

Dream Twenty:

Perhaps it is as the result of having watched Nelly last night, or perhaps it is a continuation of my dream wherein I am Biggie Smalls. (which I am having trouble finding in my record at present, but I am sure if you keep digging you will find me.) At any rate, I attended Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s funeral. During the service a eulogy was intoned by that one upstart kid on YouTube who left a comment, I.A.L, on “Got Yo Money”, singing O.D.B’s praises as though the drug-addled gangster was some sort of a role model. In the Dream, this young man, who proved to be a weedy ginger kid from the suburbs, said that Dirty Bastard (whom he mistakenly called “Dirt Nasty”, at some point) ate everything that he wanted to eat and fucked everything that he wanted to fuck, (the boy’s words exactly, if memory serves) and that he was a Great Man. Upon the Tomb Stone, which was produced by a company owned by the redhead’s father, a member of the Redheaded League of Scotland, there was inscribed an engraving that translated to: “Here Lies a Happy Animal”, roughly. The Father was so moved to tears by the boy’s “sermon” (his words exactly!!) that he ordered a Tomb to be built to house both O.D.B. and his son’s ashes. But his son protested, complaining that he all ways wanted his ashes to be cut with heroin that would be spread via the “drug trade in Chi-town”. After much dispute and tearful embrace, the compromise was granted by the patriarch.

I was eating Shrimp at the Wake when I was approached by a member of the Wu Tang clan. He introduced himself as “Goatface Killah” and insisted that I was the Clan’s prime suspect for the murder of O.D.B. I decided not to hurt their pride by arguing that the Bastard had killed himself with drugs. So I spun a tale wherein a rival of mine had supplied him with the drugs, which were deliberately laced with a drug called Fallen Angel Dust. Goatface promised to avenge by friend O.D.B.

As I took my leave of the Wake I was approached by RZA and GZA, dressed as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. I asked them if they weren’t supposed to be dead, too. RZA replied that they had found enough evidence to convict O.D.B’s killer, but that they were afraid to present it to the Police, for fear of violating Omerta. GZA told me that they all knew now that I had no vendetta against O.D.B. They peaced, and I was left baffled. I had no idea that my story was true. I thought that maybe this was proof for Confirmation Bias: that the more you want to believe in something, the more evidence you will. But it was at this moment that a cop car pulled up next to me.

I had to appear before a Court that investigated the murder. Not unlike the Ricin Scene in Breaking Bad, I had first to endure an investigation by two F.B.I. agents who wanted to know how I could have known what I did if I had had no involvement in it. They could let me off the hook if I supplied the information. But I had not the heart to tell them I had made it all up.

In Court, I could not tell whether I was a Witness or a Defendant. The Plaintiff was the Father of the Redheaded boy. He argued ferociously with my legal counsel, who was GZA, that I had deliberately poisoned O.D.B. and lain a false trail. He argued that I had a vendetta against O.D.B. from the very beginning. I replied that I had nothing against O.D.B. in particular. It was rather that I hate his entire kind.

Perhaps I lost the support of the Clan. But the Judge ruled in my favour, and I got to go home. I still could not help but to wonder: had my rival ACTUALLY killed O.D.B? The evidence was overwhelming. But then I realized that O.D.B. had CHOSEN to take the drug. Along the way, I past a rehabilitation clinic. A woman sat outside it with a sign reading “will suck for food”. I asked her what happened. She told me that she was a nurse who used to help her patients back to sobriety, but that O.D.B, by his sheer presence, had driven her out of business by selling prescription drugs for cheap.

I took her home. Along the way I wondered whether or not O.D.B. had deserved to die. But then I realized that people would pardon him all his sins in Death. If this woman, an aspiring Healer, could be reduced to victimhood by the sheer presence of a competitor, forced to watch all her patients die as victims of O.D.B’s tyranny, then surely, fucked up as it was, (my words exactly) O.D.B. would all so, at some point or an other, be remembered as a Victim. In an age without virtue, anything was possible. So at least the animal had died loved.

DM.A.A.

DREAM NINETEEN!!

          In Senior Year of High School Doctor Englund cast me to read (all of) Hamlet’s lines in class as we read the play. Kyle, seated next to me at the front of the class, at my left hand, was cast to play Horatio. I still remember him patting me on the left shoulder in a brotherly way when she ended class right before my “to Be or Not to Be” monologue, so that I knew what I had to look forward to for the next class.

Act One:

Anthony and I found a number that was 216 digits long. We had to rush it to print, because a group of Hasidic Jews were pressuring us to return it to them. So we arranged to meet with them in Jerusalem. Upon arrival we were led into an ancient tomb by Mike Johnston, wearing a turban like the sort that André 3000 would have worn when he first came into touch with the Divine. Deep within it we discovered that the Jews had secretly been working in concert with the Egyptians; all of the hieroglyphs had Hebrew inscriptions engraved into them. Mike told me that their war was only in itself one front for a much Greater War.

I remember now how Anthony found the number. It had been delivered to him by an Austrian official who was interested in supplanting the Fuhrer. Anthony had to swallow it during a routine inspection. He later pulled it again out of his ass.

Act Two:

Deep into the caverns we plunged. We were just about to reach the Center when a statue of Athena (inexplicably, but I guess that Deep Down all archetypes are the same) came alive and blocked our path. Curious about the sudden appearance of a Greek Goddess in a tomb built by Egyptian Semites, I looked more closely at her. One of her eyes was missing. Then I noticed that there were microscopic chains trailing up from her shoulders and joints. I climbed them. As I rose further and farther into the abyss I began to see, with increasing clarity, two crosses (elongated, not Greek) that were being used to manipulate the statue via the marionette strings.

I found my footing on a sort of wooden beam the likes of which old British (and, at the time, Irish) sea vessels used, many of which had historically been turned into the roofs of chapels and the like. Across from me sat the puppeteer, a small and hooded figure. I demanded his identity. He told me that he did not owe it to me. I told him that we were God’s Chosen People. He replied that Athena had chosen him instead. I replied that Athena only chose him because she was being manipulated. He replied that I had no grasp on the situation. I made a pun on the word “grasp”: something to the effect that at least I am not grasping at straws trying to handle it. He said that I was. Below me Anthony asked what was taking so long. But I told him to be patient. He replied that Ares was coming and that we had to hurry. I told him to open Pandora’s Box using the Blades of Chaos. I returned to face my hooded interlocutor. He had begun to retreat from me. I approached. I told him that if no man were entitled to Herusalem then she would die alone. He asked me who “she” was. I said: we are within a sea vessel. A ship is called “she”. He replied that “she” was but an object for utility. I called him a parasite and a termite in the wood. I continued to tell him that the Kingdom fell, dying alone without its proper King, just as he had planned for it to. He asked me how a Kingdom could be called “she”. Then he told me that he knew how the King fell. As I lunged at him in a fury, the beams ignited beneath me, and I fell as well, to my Death.

Act Three:

The tomb transformed into an Irish Catholic vessel that bore me across the River Styx. I was assigned a new body. I found myself dressed in black garments, as was Prince Hamlet. Beholding myself in a mirror, I could not doubt that I was him.

I was led by Chiron into a room not unlike the room with the Potions from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. At a Go table sat Jim Halpert, with a set of scales in one hand and a sword in the other. I sat down to play against him. He asked me why I wanted to return to flesh. I told him that I had to kill Claudius in order to avenge the Death of the Rightful King. He asked me if I did not mean the Rightful Queen. After a point, I had no choice but to confess. He told me that the Chess Game was all most over. I could relax and play Go for the time being.

Jim told me that in order to Love Fully one had to surrender the intellect. I asked him if that made him an emotivist. He replied by telling me that when he bested Roy he did it because he knew in his Heart that he must. I said: so Jim knew that he was Roy’s superior. And in that sense Jim was no different from me in my predicament. I would defeat the usurper Claudius not with my Reason but with my Intuition. Jim told me that I could use all I had within my inventory. He just advised that I not clog the desk, lest it jam. Besides: evil has a way of defeating itself.

Act Four:

I awoke in the Taj Mahal. My wife was swimming in the pool outside. The weather was still cold. It was as bad as though we were still in Denmark. I yelled down to her from a window, asking if she would not freeze. She simply replied: what does not kill me makes me stronger. She told me that if I wanted to beat Claudius I would have to learn to swim in cold water. I asked her if she meant that literally I had to race him in this weather. And then I remembered the Oceanside Pier. I had wanted so desperately to take on the elements then. To the victor would go the spoils. If action was the test of passion, as Jim had led me to conclude, then the spoils would not go to waste; only True Love COULD win in such a race. And hitherto it had not been a true competition. The war had been a front for the Greater War.

Act Five:

Word reached me and Mahal that Claudius King of Denmark died. He was cornered by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who had returned from North Korea to avenge themselves. Frantic, he threw himself off of the top of his Palace.

The New King of Denmark marched through the streets. Men bowed and women threw themselves at his feet. I enjoyed the attention. But it was nothing next to the Love of my Mahal. As we found a quiet corner of Denmark and I bent in to kiss her, she offered me a white rose. She told me that it was red when she died but now it was purified. I asked her what lifetime she’d died in. She replied that she was only a ghost, sent to haunt me up until her own death was avenged. She told me that she had been the one to lead Claudius up to the top of the Palace. Thrice she tempted him, and all three times he accepted. Once, he performed a miracle for her, manifesting bread out of his thoughts alone. This performance of the sacrament had proven to her that it was possible to assume a fleshy form even after death, that I might enjoy her. The second time, she offered him the Kingdom of Denmark. So he killed King Hamlet, my namesake, in order to claim it. She drowned herself out of sorrow and regret then. But she returned to tempt him once more. When the two rooks returned from North Korea, she persuaded Claudius to throw himself off of the top of the Palace. So he did so, proving himself thrice to be Christ’s inferior. And hence she avenged me for my suffering.

Dm.A.A.

Dream Eighteen:

I dreamt that M.C. Ride was working on a double album with Snoop Dogg. All was going well until Big Sean showed up. M.C. Ride confronted Snoop about the news: that Snoop Dogg, who had vowed to resolve the Gang War in Los Angeles, was secretly spreading occult messages through his “Lion” persona in order to give away secrets from [one gang to an other].

My interpretation: I guess I’m nervous about the concert this weekend. But I guess I’m stoked as well to be back in a place where everybody loves me.

André Benjamin was brought in from Planet Proto in order to mediate the conflict; he was revered in that entire star system as a computer scientist named Castor, but ultimately he chose to leave for Earth when his twin brother died. André 3000 flew in on his Nimbus 3000 to advise Snoop and M.C. M.C. was willing to take Andre’s advice and to release an astrologically themed album in the vein of Aquemini. But Snoop claimed that he no longer believed in Astrology.

Finally Ride returned to Death Grips. It was only shortly thereafter that he signed to Ja Rule’s label and did a collaboration with Y.G.

Dm.A.A. 

Dream Seventeen:

It was in the midst of battle. I sought refuge at a restroom [in a familiar location that I should not publicize] that was very compact and inductive of claustrophobia. To comfort me within the stall appeared an angel, female, who congratulated me on what I’d done. She proceeded to perform oral sex on me. At this moment I heard boots outside the restroom door. In addition to the marching was the sound of familiar voices chanting an even more ominously familiar verse from the Satanic Bible. They slammed through the door to the restroom, mere yards away from the entrance to the cubicle within which I had found refuge and solace in privacy. I glimpsed their boots. The leader of the gang intoned that I would be hung upside down upon a crucifix and lowered into a Well. This was punitive for having scapegoated their Fuhrer. When the cubicle door burst open from without, I discovered that my assailants were no more than mere boys. Within their hands were not hammers and nails but rather percussion mallets and drum sticks. So shocked and confused were they by the erotic scene that they had stumbled upon that they fled in tears. They left behind them a suitcase labeled “Sins”. The Angel warned me against opening it, because it was analogous to Pandora’s Box. She told me that I was to be THEIR scapegoat, and that’s why they wanted to hang me upside-down: they had it all backwards. By tying the suitcase to the cross they would have drowned me, mafia-style, because otherwise the cross would have floated atop the well. The irony was so outrageous to the both of us that I awoke laughing.

Dm.A.A.

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.

DREAM SEVEN.

Strike.

Up until this point, I have been amazed by the sheer clarity and cohesion of my mo[i]st recent dreams, especially as a consistent narrative. I could only compare them in Apollonian Dignity to the series of dreams from 2013 that followed the Adventures of the Joker. About this old puzzle I wrote and raved extensively, covering not only the dream contents but its meanings, plot theories, and even its OMINOUS PARALLELS TO THE DREAMS OF MY FELLOWS, in a slew of revelation. Now this slew attains an erotic climax in the recognition of the fact that I am YET STILL DREAMING THAT STORY. The Faceless Traitor from Dream Number Fifty was of course none other than the Dog Napper that Rob and Mike had identified based on his description alone. Surely it was he who all so slashed Mike’s tires in North Korea, which I am guessing is where Rob’s Home is situated in this narrative. It is all starting to line up more neatly than a line of pawns. Some inconsistencies still nag at me, but to open discussion upon them is not only to express what might be a neurosis but it is to turn this honest record back into a philosophical forum, prone to all of the triggering distortions of an Emotive Debate League. And in the words of an old team-mate from that episode in my life: NO ONE wants Hilary for President. So I shall spare myself and others the torment of such an(al) analysis.

The dream begins where the last left off. W.K. and I had to flee our ransacked barracks. We took the Goat’s Head with us, for Good Luck, wrapping it in some old newspapers so that it would not start bleeding under the dawning Arizona (so I’m guessing: Arid Zone.) Sun.

We had to buy bicycles from the local pawnshop. As we began to peddle West, escaping the Sun that was just beginning to rise behind us, we noticed that we were being followed by a White Van. The van approached steadily and stealthily, but it was still gaining on us at a rate that was slow for a motor vehicle but much too fast for a foot-peddled bicycle. In a frantic move, the White Knight threw the Goat’s Head at the car. The truck did not just squash the head, which fell short of the windshield. It FLIPPED OVER, crashing on its roof, and guzzling fossil fuel from its dead underbelly. W.K, who mere moments ago had been playing E.T. with the Diabolical Scapegoat in his basket between his handlebars, was so shocked that he hit a fire hydrant. Before I could find my brakes, he flipped over, got curb-stomped by Gravity, and was soon covered, as far as his right-hand side was concerned, in oil. It was at this moment that the Joker emerged from the car. He was carrying a flame thrower. I screamed at the Joker not to do it. The Joker asked: do what? Don’t kill him, I replied. Don’t light him on fire, man. It was like Tarantino all over again. The Joker replied: I wasn’t about to. But now I will.

The last time that I felt this way was upon witnessing my dog’s injection in a Prior, Recent Dream. The White Knight screamed as half his face was burnt off. The Joker ambled away, content in spite. Out of the van emerged the Faceless Man. He walked through the fire like a daemon, took the White Knight’s bicycle, and then took his leave upon it, the bicycle tires having turned to flaming circles.

I was about to chase him. But then an other Beast appeared upon the scene. To my shock and awe I beheld an enormous wurm writhed now in flame and oil emerging from the midst of the flames. Upon it rode a suit of armour. The wurm plopped painlessly down, running with a hundred legs towards my comrade. The black suit of armour swept up W.K’s charred body and burst forth onto the shore of this Lake of Fire. It was at this moment that I realized several things. One was that the suit of armour was not merely black; it was BLACKENED. The Knight’s suit jacket was still white in certain places, not unlike my own suit jacket is where it brushed concrete. Yet unlike my own suit jacket in Actuality, it was not made white in those parts where it had once been black. The human zebra that now walked towards me, carrying my comrade in its arms, was once a White Knight as well, but it had turned to black. I could not see its face, for it was vizored, but I noticed that the Blackened Knight was all so short of stature. He walked in an effeminate fashion that leant new meaning to the word “gentleman”. He quivered as he carried the other White Knight, a fallen soldier, and when he whistled for his steed, who was comprised of a hundred phalluses, there was a breathiness, and really a breathlessness, in the whistle.

The steed was awkward to ride, especially with my crotch upon its flesh and only two layers of clothing segregating us. Add to that a heterosexual’s delight at riding with his burnt buddy before him, clinging to two penises for dear life, and an effeminate gentleman, my knight in shining armour, behind me. It was quite the experience.

We flew across the Sierra Nevada. My friend behind me said, in a distinctively exasperated tone prone to the occasional fit of glossolalia, but that might have been only a speech impediment heard over the sound of rushing air (as he had to shout to fight the wind and his sound waves left a wake behind us), that the Dick Centipede could only travel by night, so we would have to outfly the Sun. I asked politely, albeit shoutingly, if the beast had a scientific name. My Saviour replied, but I could not make out for certain the nature of his response. It could have been any where from “I am not an etymologist” to “I am an entomologist”. So I cut my losses.

We landed in San Diego Bay, atop the roof of Mr. A’s Restaurant. The Saviour said that this skyscraper was the safest place for us to hide and heal. He ran into the stairwell at a pace surprising for any one dressed entirely in iron, or whatever it was that had, instead of iron, kept his body from burning up like the victim of a Bronze Bull.

As the sky was just beginning to intimate a shade of indigo, I spoke to W.K. Really, he spoke to me. (Pardon the revision; I was told once by a Mystic to be more attentive to emotional detail in my dream records. My poetic style of delivery was described perhaps as being a “stream of consciousness”, though in reality those emotions that we can express outwardly are more akin to the conscious ego. The result of this was that I BEGAN TO write in a manner more AKIN to stream of consciousness, which states one thing as a fact and then quickly revised it as though it spoke too soon. No omniscient narrator would ever do that. But that’s what I get [and what YOU get, I guess, if there’s any chance a receiving end on this thing.] for trusting an old Gypsy Grifter who needs you to be “specific” (as though the Unconscious were Specific and the ego were Vague!!) so that she can “analyze” your dreams in a manner that appears to be suited to YOUR purposes.) He told me that now that his right-hand side was singed irreversibly, the right hand path was lost to him. I called him Gotham’s White Knight and gave him a Quarter. At this moment, the door of the stairwell suddenly burst open. The Blackened Knight came lumbering forth, stuttering. I could only make out this much news: that both of the White Rooks were dead. They were struck by lightning atop a tower in North Korea. Apparently, the North Korean government had learned how to manipulate the weather in order to produce political assassinations.

The Saviour Knight urged us to follow him, but I felt strongly and palpably that W.K. had to rest. As W.K. began to mutter, I leaned in, ignoring the B.K’s pleas. Gotham’s White Knight told me that he knew who the Joker was. The Joker was the Other Bishop. The Faceless Man was the White King. And both of them were working with the North Korean Government. But the Joker was betrayed by the White King, so the Joker burnt the White King’s face off. Now no one knows whether the Joker will remain loyal to the White Side or will go over to the Dark Side.

At this point, I heard two things at once, as though in symphony, but perhaps I simply lost my sense of time and everything felt like it was happening at once. I must have briefly visited the Dream Time. It was like being high at Black’s Beach that night with Rob. At once I heard the Dick Centipede Rider screaming over the sound of Thunder. It was like a piccolo playing over a dozen crash cymbals and ten timpanis. I felt water touch me. It splashed upon my comrade, as though to heal him, and he retracted from the sting of the water as though it had been a poisoned barb. I told him it was fine. I told him it was only water. But he said: it’s acid. It is poison.

Lightning struck and I woke up.

I write Goats, not Tragedies.

Dm.A.A.