Excerpt: Perchance a Dream

Harrison found himself in a hotel, a fancy circular lobby, tall white columns holding up a dome-like, sky-lit ceiling over a low, black fountain with dancing streams of water in the middle. He was there to meet someone, though he wasn’t sure who. There was a fair crowd, maybe forty or fifty people scattered in small groups across the lobby, standing in their finery and sipping on drinks. None of them were the person he was supposed to meet, though, he know. He decided to wait in the lobby, and a white-coated waiter came by with a tray of Heineken bottles.

“I may need these,” he said, taking the whole tray and setting it down beside him on the wide fountain ledge. That’s when he saw they still had their lids on them. He checked his pockets but realized he’d left his bottle opener up in his room. He couldn’t go get it, though; it was imperative he meet. . . whoever he needed to meet down here. He frowned, then placed the first beer against the ledge of the fountain— it was just a sharp enough angle. He placed it carefully and then popped down on the top with his other hand, the cap bouncing off and then into the fountain. He looked over into the fountain, trying to determine whether he could get it out easily, and noticed that there were hundreds and hundreds of caps down there— like coins in so many. This was all wrong.

He stood up and started looking around, the noise volume in the lobby suddenly escalating with what seemed to be a simultaneous uptick in everyone’s blood alcohol content. People were smiling and laughing but Harrison knew that the situation was not good. Then he saw her. He hadn’t noticed before that none of the people had been wearing colorful clothes. Blacks, whites, grays, beiges— all calm, unthreatening neutrals. But this woman was wearing a shocking, fire-hydrant red dress. She was tall, with red hair, and he had just a glimpse of long, shapely legs emerging from the slit in her dress before she disappeared around a corner towards the elevator. He ran after her but, as he turned the corner, saw her entering the elevator. He went to push the button for an elevator but realized that all the beer bottle lids were back in the lobby. He raced back around the corner to go back after his tray of beers but was able to see through a part in the crowd that they were already gone.