Three days' worth of dreams, not three consecutive days, but the last few that have emerged out of glutinous sleep. They were all very long and well-constructed dreams. Only shards now remain, dully covered in the sand and spume of time.

Shaking hands with Bob Hope. Uttering some platitude. A long walk around low covered buildings. Something about a purportedly convincing psychic demonstration.

What extraordinary tale of poisoning was it? Or was it something entirely else? The end of it was that the children were hiding in the suitcase, still and spongy like shrunked heads. I took them out to draw their attention to something, an inspection?

Sailing with a girl and her grandfather from the fabled port of Mortovískí across the rivermouth to a smaller, older city nearby. She had asked where the best magic scrolls were to be had. A wider selection here in the great port, but more potent in the heart of the ancient town. I was excited and awed by the long, low, eastern shore, the markets, the people around me: this was the first time ever I had dreamt of the fantastic creations of my childhood. At last I was seeing them for real, though it was odd I was first introduced to them here down in the far seas and lands of the South, rather than in those that seemed my home. She was fearful of being followed, of being bugged, and I assured her her fears were imaginary, and no-one could insinuate such a small magical device into her hair or the folds of her clothes or under her skin. She besought me to search, and we played this game a little as we camped by the palm-fringed banks of the slowly-flowing river, in the warmth of night, and then she came to me with breasts unbared. I caressed and searched in her hair, across her breasts, and then for the rest of the voyage we were making love many times, much to the discomfiture and jealousy of the old man. This feeling I tried to extend and keep captive in the hypnopompic bath of morning, and quite as much so the realization that I had at last a perfect plot for my story, with characters and scenes and coherence - not down there in the heady South but amid my own heartland.

And all is faded whither dreams go.

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