Someone said something funny and, laughing, the splint fell off my nose. I was startled to find that I had gone into a nightclub, surrounded by strangers, with a large, gray splint on my nose. Then, slowly, I realized that this was no ordinary nightclub. I was in a dream; with that dream certainty I knew the nightclub was my mind. I looked for an exit but could see none; the crowd was too thick to escape.
The atmosphere was a mimic of the cacophony of noise in my mind to which I have become accustomed: careless, raucous laughter, yelling, voices raised in anger, someone was wailing, someone sang, and in the background under the club's dim light was the endless thumping music, now dance music, now a classical symphony, now a flute in the dark, which none of the people in the surging crowd seemed to notice.
They did not notice the music because they were not people. These were the dream representations of my ideas. I stood in that crowd, jostled lightly by the passing ideas, and watched them all. Their interplay was the harmony of laughter or the dissonance of argument. Some were large with booming voices, obese beings that needed to have the fat trimmed from them. Some were quiet and inscrutable, dressed in black. Some were male; some were female; some neither. Some were confident, well-dressed, and knew how to dance to the music that only they could hear. A few thrashed about in anger, drunk and obnoxious, and needed to be escorted from the club.
Then, with a start, I noticed people from the real world in the throng. I saw my father talking to a group of ladies, charming them I was sure, in heaven as he did on earth. There was a dream pause then, long enough for me to realize that ideas are influenced by experience, which is memory, so it was natural that the Idea Beings should talk to the Memory People who came to mingle amid the crashing noise and swaying symphonies.
Dr. Who was there, talking to a group of fears, dressed in long coats. They were smiling and nodding. He caught my eye and waved. I had seen him a week ago, nose splint in hand, and we noted the vast improvement in the nose. But still more surgery would be required to continue the improvement so he referred me to another plastic surgeon. I waved back to him with my right arm now healed, free of the wrist splint and able to write. A gaggle of my words rushed by as little children, giggling and weaving through the crowd, under coats and skirts.
I saw William Blake talking to a couple of extravagant ideas in the shifting shadows. At the far end of the room, ascending a staircase, was the television reporter. I wanted to reach out to him, to tell him that he was going to be severely injured if he did not leave that wild country, but I could not make my way through the swirling crowd. The music was too loud for me to shout. He vanished into a hallway. Moments later, I noticed a black, thin warlord in brown trailing robes disappear down the same hallway, escorted by two warriors with spears. Moonface was there, too, my assailant. I saw him in a break in the crowd. He did not notice me; he was headed for the exit when the crowd closed again and blocked him from view. I knew that I would never see him again. The certainty of that knowledge approached me then, dressed gaily, and shook my hand with a smile. A soft beautiful music was playing.
The dream was ending. Naturally, I found myself approaching the exit, shoved along gently by the countless bodies that floated past. That was when I turned around and saw him, distant in the crowd as he was distant with the years. He was accompanied by his wife and children. His wife looked up and saw me. She was at a great distance, as she was years ago when she noticed me talking to him and one of his children outside the ice-skating rink. I could not make out her face in the dim light. Then swiftly they were swallowed by the crowd surging towards the bar at last call. From their area a hand was raised above the crowd, lifting a rose into the air. But I could not tell if it was his hand as the distance and the years grew with every passing moment.
At the coat check, I was met by the Korean Lady, with my shiny, clean coat in hand. When she held the coat out to me, I felt as though she was giving me a suit of armor. "An yung ha se yo," we greeted each other. She said I needed to tell them what I saw though I did not know who "them" was. She said I needed to tell the story. Then she smiled and her eyes vanished in little slits of glee.
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