In my dream, the society is restrictive, and it feels like Casablanca (in the movie, not real life). We shouldn't be out as late as we are. Things could happen. It is near dusk, and I am in a car with three other people. I'm in the passenger seat.

Up ahead, we see some boys fighting. In their hands are cards with words on them. They're ruining the words. One of the words is "syzygy". I make the driver stop the car and we watch as they continue destroying words. Suddenly, I can't take it anymore; I hop out of the car and approach the boys.

They look up at me and stop fighting. "You can't ruin the words like that," I tell them. "Syzygy is a really cool word. Don't ruin it." I have taken a card from one of them and am trying to repair the word that was on it. I line up a "C" and an "O" but the letters have gotten mixed up and they don't all fit. While I am trying to fix the words, I am lecturing them about how cool the word "syzygy" is.

They are looking at me like I'm going to hit them. "Don't worry, I'm not going to get you in trouble. I don't even know who you are." I'm trying to reassure them, to win them over so I can convince them to leave the words alone. I want them to believe me.

Just then, a teacher or someone comes up. She's mad at the boys for being out; she's looking at me suspiciously. I can tell she's going to lay into them. I mutter something about them "just being boys" in the hopes that she won't punish them, and I get back into the car. I tell my friends that I shouldn't have done that, being a woman in this restrictive society, but I couldn't let the words get ruined. I just couldn't.

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