In my dream something is trying to break through. We put on leather billed caps, and push down on the steel table tops with our fists while it shoves back. The ceiling drips a syrup that you can’t get in your mouth. Whatever it is it will win.

In my dream I find a place for their presence and the house is old and extensive in the right way. I’m fooling myself to think I belong and the door while closed is just propped between the girl and the street. How safe is that? That’s my final thought.

In my dream I must escape through the holodeck. It’s been programmed as a spiraling warehouse: shipping containers, steel archways, retail game displays and occupied surgical tables. It’s hard to generate so much stuff: the recesses glitch, and gravity is floaty, my movement slow and unsteady. Dread pulses steadily in my chest.

In my dream I’m offended by her presumption about teaching me “Performance in your culture, from the West Side”. I’m piling up objections in my head while we roll around.