had one of those dreams, funny dreams, that don't feel important or symbolic but that are entertaining and just a smidge stressful. it started out that i was a part of some kind of ambassador team to north america, for a trip that the dali lama was making here. i had to fly to new york city to attend to him. we stayed in a very swanky hotel. the whole time i was there i was anxious to get away from the ambassador job because i wanted to explore the city and we were only going to be there two days and one night. i also had steve burns' phone number and wanted to hook up with him to grab a drink or something. but my duties kept me busy the entire time. the dali lama was nothing like i expected. he was a magician and would put people into a trance and force them to do his bidding. i tried to lay low, i was afraid of him. he seemed like a petulant, vengeful boy.

on the last day, the whole entourage went to the airport. i was supposed to get on the plane back home with them, but in an impulsive fit, while standing in line to check our baggage, i just started backing away from everyone. people were like, "er, lynn, where are you going?" and i said, "um, i'm not going home yet. i'll call you in a day or two." and they all stood there looking dumbfounded at me as i walked slowly away. we all knew i did not have the money to fly home at a later date, on my own. in fact, i had no money and only the clothes on my back.

i found myself standing on the shore of a big river, with a group of strange women. they had all finished a jog. it was nighttime. they were stretching and cooling down. i knew one of them from an internet bulletin board. i asked her if she knew how to get to brooklyn because i had to see my friend steve. she said yes and told me to follow her. we all started jogging. it was a strange feeling. i had a different body, i guess. i was leaping and running, feeling super free and light and running didn't wind me at all. i was convinced it was the shoes i was wearing. when we got to brooklyn all the jogging women left me standing alone in the street. a car pulled up beside me and inside were steve burns and paul ford. "jump in, lynn!" they cried, laughing and scootching over to make room for me. i climbed in the car and it carried us to steve's apartment. paul ford had some sort of medical emergency and had to go into steve's bedroom to use the phone to call the ER and ask for advice. he asked me if i had any personal lubricant he could use. i pointed at the huge tub of intime sitting on steve's dresser. he thanked me and shooed me out of the room.

i went into steve's living room where he was pouring us drinks and had the t.v. on. he was chatting incessantly about his upcoming tour. i asked him when he had to leave and he said, "oh man, just five days. or...maybe ten days? no! twenty days!" and handed me my drink. we watched t.v. and chatted for a while. he asked me why i was still in new york even though all my friends had left. i didn't want to tell him that i'd stayed behind, with no money or anywhere to stay or any clothes simply because i wanted to hang out with him. i just said, "oh, i have friends i want to visit before i go home again," and he nodded amicably. inside i was thinking, i have two hours or less to convince him to let me stay in his apartment, or else i'm on the streets in a huge, strange city. his phone rang and it was my mom. he put me on and my mom said, "lynn! what are you doing! your husband and kids need you! do you have one thousand dollars to pay your way home? do you? i am NOT paying for this! i am NOT bailing you out of this one!" and i was all quiet and said, "you don't have to, mom. i'm not asking you to." and she was silent for a long time and i could tell she was waiting for me to offer and explanation and when i didn't, (even though i considered lying and saying i had been too sick to get on the plane) she simply hung up on me.

so there i was, hanging out in steve burns' apartment and getting drunk and trying to think of a way to bring up the fact that i now wanted to be his charge, his ward, his friend that he was going to put up with for a few days and perhaps even pay for to go home again. but i couldn't find a way to bring it up. i was embarrassed and shy and i wanted him to think everything was cool and that i had all my ducks in a row. he showed me his set list and packed a suitcase in front of me. then, after a while, he said, "okay, well, i'm beat so i should head to bed. do you need me to call you a cab?"

i stood up, taking a breath, ready to spill my guts, and then deflated. "no," i said, "i can walk from here."

"okay then! it was great meeting you and hanging out. maybe i'll make it to vancouver some day!"

"yeah," i said, fake-cheerful, feeling a sick dread in my stomach, thinking about the long night i had ahead of me, "that'd be cool."

and then i was on the street.

i huddled in an alley and dumpster-dived for food. some homeless people stood a distance away from me, just staring at me while i scarfed down half-chewed cobs of corn and some kind of nearly-moldy curried chickpea dish. they were hungry, but i knew i was in this for the long haul, and i didn't want to share.

it starts as a family meeting in grandmother's house. she has passed on. we are solemn but know that her suffering is over. uncle carl offers to take us out to dinner, he is rich -- a lawyer -- he can afford it. we all go out. dinner is uneventful and afterwards i invite my entire family back to my home. i am unmarried with no children. i live in a mobile home in a mobile home park that is treeless and graveled. small, thin patches of grass grow there. i feel ashamed a little of my home. i buy two varieties of fritos to take back to the wake with me.

we arrive at the mobile home park. it is dark outside. no one wants to go in because there will not be enough space for us all. we sit at a picnic table in the blackness. no one is talking, but the chips are opened and eaten. one of my friends says to me, "come to the hotel, tonight, lynn. don't sleep here alone." i agree.

at the the hotel i lose my friend. the dream also becomes confusing. i am in a hotel room with strangers and friends. some of the strangers don't talk, they just watch, like policemen or prison guards. i am uncomfortable and my friends tell me to play it cool. my mother is in the room with me but she is drunk and incoherent. i am embarrassed by her behaviour, i don't like that it is drawing attention to us. my uncle waves me away from her and says she is allowed to mourn anyway she likes. i leave the room in frustration and decide to go back home. i see no one following me but i know that i am still being watched.

i get in the elevator. i cannot understand the buttons. the numbers seem to appear in random order. there is no "1" or "L" (for lobby). there is a "C", a "P" (which is where the 3rd floor should be), a "Q", and the name "Ann" printed on the lower buttons. since "Ann" is the lowest level button i push it. the elevator doors close and it goes up. i feel dizzy and get vertigo. the elevator is not going where i want it to. the doors open on a floor that looks exactly like the one i left but there is no one there. i stab a different number and the doors close. to my relief it goes down. the doors open on what looks to be a basement. i am about to climb off when a large man appears. he has straight white hair, is only an inch or two taller than me, and is barrel-chested. he looks friendly, an older man to give me advice about how to get out of the hotel, but he is flustered and seems afraid of me.

"how do i get to the lobby?" i ask politely, "i have been trying to understand the buttons..."

"you'll get to the lobby when they decide it's time for you to leave," he says, looking at me sadly.

"who's they?" i reply, feeling suddnely sick as the elevator shoots straight up again. it seems to hum for a long time.

"i'm not clear on that," he replies, not looking at me anymore, "but i've been here for months. i think i'm starting to get it. i wish i could help you. i'm lost, too." the elevator starts descending again. i notice for the first time that the elevator walls are alternately mirrors and then painted scarlet. the light above us is sickly and flourescent.

"what are you talking about?" i asked, incredulously, "i just want to go home. how do i get to the lobby?"

"the first time i figured out that something strange was happening, it was too late for me, just like it is for you," he said, looking down at his feet. "i was in my room and a girl appeared. she pressed me into the red. i never knew what it was like to move through complete silence. silence is red. we were stuck there a long time, like taffy. she can come back any time now. she has a line of sight into my heart. we were enveloped in red silence. like construction paper."

i felt a strange wave of fear move up my throat from my stomach. the elevator doors opened on yet another floor of rooms. "thank you," i said to him, walking out of the doors, "i will take the stairs, i think." he looked up at me as the doors shut and waved slowly.

it was the first time i noticed that the entire hotel was decorated in lurid reds and deep oranges and mirrors. it was a very disturbing theme of colours and textures. everything was so quiet. i still felt as though i were being watched, or worse, pursued by someone or something. i made my way towards what i thought to be the center of the building, where there would be stairs, i was sure. and i was right. there was a long, wide, carpeted set of spiral stairs leading down and out of sight. i could not tell how high up i was, but it had to have been high because i could not see the bottom floor from where i peeked over the thin iron railing.

a door opened across the way from me and another man appeared. he was tall and lanky and had on only a bathrobe. his had was completely bald on top and he had poofs of black curly hair springing out from the sides and back of his head. he wore a black moustache. "miss!" he said, "stop right there!"

something told me i must not stop. the story the man in the elevator has related to me made me convinced that this hotel, and it's inhabitants, were intent on trapping me within it's walls forever. the man in the bathrobe contined to shout at me but did not move from his spot outside his door. i stared at him for a full minute before i climbed onto the iron railing for the staircase -- straddled it --, and began to slowly slide down. when he saw what i was doing, he paused a moment, shouted, "hey there!" and then made a dash towards me. i let my grip loosen on the railing and began coasting more quickly. he was running fast on the stairs, just barely keeping a few steps behind me. i slid down, and round and round, faster and faster, the identical floors of the hotel swimming up past my vision. i lost sight of him, finally, but he appeared again suddenly on a floor i was just skimming past by leaping out of the one of the hotel room doors. "go away!" i shouted at him, "stop chasing me!" he was no longer speaking, only grunting in his effort to catch me. i slid and slid. i must have past 20 or 30 floors and still there was no lobby in sight. the air was rushing past my ears in a whisper. my hands were sweaty and squeaking on the railing. i tried to just barely touch the metal because i wanted to slide down as quickly as possible. it was while i was focusing intently on my grip that i realized he was no longer chasing me.

i slowed down. the hotel was completely silent. i climbed off the railing and began walking, at a good pace, down the stairs, ears perked for any sound at all. i finally made it to the bottom, where the lobby lay spread out before me in the same mirrored golds and reds and oranges as the rest of the hotel. it was completely deserted. there was no one at the front desk. i walked out the revolving doors, and was shocked to find that beyond the hotel's borders lay the mobile home park i lived in.

i turned around and looked back. the hotel loomed above me, 200 stories high or more. all the lights were on and it beamed in the blackness like a spaceship. it was so incongruous with it's landscape. i walked away from it, never turning my back on it, until i bumped into a trailer.

i turned around and looked at the fiberglass hobbithole i'd thumped against. it was dark inside, but a glowing white curtain flurried in one of the windows and a woman's small moon-like face appeared. she looked angry. i looked away quickly and started to crunch across the gravel. it was then i noticed that the light was coming, that dawn was coming, the sky was turning a pale grey. the bright electric lights from the hotel still cast a golden, ominous glow across the gravel and thin grass of the mobile home park and i still felt ill in my stomach. the woman that had peered out at me suddenly burst from her trailer. "HEY YOU!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, "HEY YOU GET BACK HERE!" i looked back and saw her standing on the metal steps of her trailer in a business suit, carrying a small gun and a notepad. i turned and began to run across the gravel. stones spit out from under my feet. i was using my arms to pull me through the air, that felt as though it had turned to water, it was slowing me down so much. the woman in the suit was pursuing me, shrieking at me. i could see an old house just beyond the next few trailers. it was something that had been built in the 1800s. there were no trees around it, no grass, it stood silent as if empty. i saw that i might be able to hide in some of it's corners if i could just get there before the woman caught me. i pushed myself as hard as i could and dashed between trailers and RVs. the sky was becoming more and more light, and rain began to fall, gentle at first, and then it turned to downpour. grey dawn downpour. i reach the big old house and move along it's exteriour, like a rat. my hair is plastered against my head and forehead. the woman, i can see, has dashed into a huge, expensive and modern looking RV. i see her inside it's sleek grey and white panels and windows. she is shouting at someone and motioning towards the house i am hiding outside of. i swallow hard and stay pressed against the walls. i don't know how i am going to get away from all this. there are no trees, there is nowhere to hid, really. the moment i decided to make a break for it, i will be spotted and captured. i don't know what they want from me, but i know it isn't good.

while thinking all of this, a girl appears, out of nowhere, in front of me. she is 18 or 19. she is slender and has pale red hair and freckled skin. she is smiling benignly at me. "do you want to get away from here?" she asks me. i nod silently at her. "you have to trust me," she says, and i watch as she raises a sheet of red construction paper up over my face. "you have to breathe right onto this, lynn," she says, pressing it into my face so that it covers my nose and mouth and eyes, "it will seem strange and hard at first but you can do it if you don't think about it too hard." i cannot see anything but red, and i hear the rain pattering down around the two of us. i feel her press her own face against the paper, too, so that we would be kissing if it wasn't there, and i suddenly remember the story the man in the elevator told me. about falling into complete silence. silence is red. red construction paper. i feel her breath pass through the paper and suddenly i get my breathing just right. magic breathing. we are breathing with one set of lungs. a hot, long, numbing tingle passes from her mouth on the one side of the paper into mine, and the tingle spreads from my mouth to my brain to my heart to my lungs, and i lose conciousness, and fall down into the gravel beside the house, while the rain continues to fall around me. the girl is gone. i don't know where i go, either, but i am gone a long time. a day? a week? a month? the man was right. complete silence is red. red construction paper.

there was more. but threads of it slipped away from me before i had even completely woken up.