Gradie dreamed of being chased and a gun that refused to fire. As he awoke, the details of the dream faded like vapor, but the fear remained. He told himself it was the fear of being te again, another write-up, another meeting, but it wouldn’t fit. It was the fear of having fotten something. A revetion given by the dream, sughtered by the arm.

  M broke open as he hit the highway and the sky turned a sweet pinkish-e, like the strawberry-banana drinks he used to get as a kid, gss bottle shining in the summer sun, dripping densation like mercury. Thin clouds took on the colors and floated zily above the grey crete chopping by. Passing cars reflected the sky on back windows, e strips, and side mirrors. He tried to ig. There was something about it all that reminded him of the dream, of something fotten.

  He worked at an office park off the highway, in a water-stained t and gss tower. The little gazebos that had seemed so charming during his interview looked like gargoyles two years ter and the bowl-shaped cracked parking lot seemed about to fall through into something unknown. He walked across it, trying not to see, w how it would look to him in awo years.

  He beeped his ID on the door and the noise found a thousand others in his memory, all singing that he’d be here forever. He rushed past the coffee gargling break room, already smelling of microwaved Styrofoam, into a cubicle maze of white noise and coaxing voices. A clo the wall said 0801. He dropped his bag o his desk and clocked in without sitting down.

  After a few minutes of daydreaming, he clicked the i that brought up ats, like shooting an old friend. The first one had a long history of phone calls to an insuranpany with nothing aplished, eae speirely on hold. A small mercy. He opened his bag to pull out his book, a thick paperback fantasy, and locked up like he had touched a live wire.

  He went through much of his day, especially at the office, in a series of automatients that slipped by unnoticed. (He would park his car at the apartment and be uo remember anything about the drive home). But now that automata had entered something ued, and froze.

  The shape was familiar, but the familiarity was fleeting. Fluorest light caught a textured matte-bck grip and a mirror square of metal.

  A handgun. His thoughts became a solid tone, like a piano key held down. He broke out in a full sweat and slumped over in his chair. When he could move, he reached ba, expeg his hand to pass through the gun like a hologram. He ed his fingers around it and lifted. It was heavy and real.

  What the fuck?

  Someone walked down the aisle throwing out good ms and he closed the bag in a hurry. He pressed his fingers into his palm to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

  He was undeniably awake.

  -

  o meet you. -EE