In my dream the trembling dog leaps into my arms and her shaking reminds me that I haven’t taken care of her for days. The flood of guilt wakes me.

In my dream: three gray flashes at the edge of vision.

In my dream the sirens go off a few blocks over and I turn to my friends in exasperation, saying “I am so over him” meaning the mayor.

In my dream it is unclear if he is alive or not.

In my dream the guards slide bodies into the coffins they have propped up in the glade. The sun strikes the brightly colored lids whose shifting patterns betray their “AI” generated origins. This was inevitable.

In my dream: amused isolation.

In my dream the yellow river spreads out before us as we look down from the barge’s deck. Turning out around I see a towering rock with apartments carved into its surface twenty stories up.

In my dream Catherine O’Hara is performing “If I Could Talk To The Animals” as Moira Rose, ultimately scuttling like a crab and mooing.

In my dream our happy discussion is enough to drive entire tables of people away from us.

In my dream it’s time for the fight and I head down the lift and start through the yards. There are more barriers at each step and I understand these  smiling people mean to lynch me. I struggle, making weapons out of what I can find, until I am pressing the splintered end of a broken oboe against an old woman’s skull. I push until it goes in.