I am home for the summer.
The streets are burning, so I seek refuge in a large cool-white building in a verdant meadow. At first it's wood-floor hallways are empty and echoing; but after wandering for them a while, brightly colored children, older than me, begin to populate the corners and the narrowing passages. Recognition dawns, I am in my old high school.
(Nightmare).
The number of silent students swell, and the hallways start to fill with body heat. I see a door that looks like the door to my old gym, the only one in the school with a window. That window was always broken; this one is clear and perfect. I touch the glass and it's blessedly cool. I duck through, and emerge in another hallway, bulging in the middle to the size of a large indoor soccer field. Isaac is there. We pass a soccer ball back and forth, but soon the obnoxious students start to fill our cool sanctuary, and it heats up again. I wonder why I didn't just go home.
"Where is everyone going?"
I ask one of them, and without him really answering, I know that
Beck is here. Beck rocks, but I keep playing soccer because by now the halls are emptied again and the chatter has receded. I mention to Isaac about Beck, but he as
strangely unconcerned as I am. We play more for a while, and then Isaac points. I turn and see that Beck is walking down the hallway with a horde of kids following him. I am watching myself now. Isaac and I walk right up to the pressing, yelling kids. Beck is dressed in some
slacks and an
aloha shirt. Isaac and I give him a
slide five and follow him to another room.
Beck is playing with Bob Dylan and all of the kids are gone, except for the black-haired girl. Who is laying on the floor with me. I watch her eyes.