V

I think tonight I would like to try lucid dreaming. I had a friend once who said he could lucid dream. He would play pool and never lose. I, though, would like to fall asleep in that dream and dream of me waking up, and in that dream of the dream, I would have that me fall asleep and dream of another me waking up. That me would then daydream of the third me waking up. Then, I would like that me in the dream of dream's dream of that me to snap himself awake, and then another me, and then another me, until I woke up in the morning. Then I would sit on the edge of the bed and wonder whether to go out into work. I would instead sit, looking through the dark window, afraid to flick the light switch, afraid to find out that I might not be where I was. Afraid to find out where, in fact, I am.

Then again, I might just try training a chorus of hamsters to sing the Top Gun theme song in four-part harmony. That would be a nice memory to start the morning with.

IV

In Thailand, I saw a dog that had been hit by a car in the middle of a busy road near the shopping mall in Sriracha. This was not uncommon. There were many stray dogs; they roamed the streets in packs at night: narrow, hungry bones with skin. Often they were hit. This dog was not dead although it soon would be. It was a she. Above her stood another dog, his legs posted like columns, surrounding her. He faced forward, head up, unmoving. The cars swerved around them, honking their horns, and yet he did not budge, and she looked up at him with sad, sad eyes. I saw this from the back of a tuk tuk, passing by, the driver beeping in disgust, and I burst into tears.

This is a true story. It was the most romantic thing I have ever seen.

III

Imagine a gnome in a large room, with a deck of cards and a window--somewhat above the gnome's tiny stature's ability to reach--through which, occasionally, a heavy gust of wind will blow. It is the gnome's duty to build houses made of cards. But, naturally, each time the house is built, the gust of wind enters the room and flattens the fragile structure, leaving the despondent gnome with a bunch of cards again. A reader of Camus or Greek mythology, or perhaps just somebody who frequents cocktail parties, might relate this gnome to Sisyphus. But then, Sisyphus was not a gnome, so there we go.

Were I that gnome, I suspect that I might play solitaire, seeing as the cards were there, and gaze up at the window, counting clouds, and noting that the shapes I saw there were soon to melt into new shapes from which I would be unable to draw visual connections to, say, a duck, or a three-legged cow, or Richard Nixon. Then I would wonder whether the knowledge of the ephemerality of cardhouses is more reason to build them--whether beauty is only reckoned in degrees of finiteness? In that case, I would endeavor to build a large and ridiculous structure, perhaps like the Statue of Liberty--one that could never be finished and so is unthreatened by the breeze.

II

When I eat out at restaurants, I like to get a club sandwich. It's nice to be part of a club. Groucho Marx once quipped, "I would never join any club that would accept me as a member," but I disagree. I would love to be a part of any club. There is something pleasant in that camaraderie, a bond of presumed fraternity which becomes so necessary in a world in which there is so little of the real thing. If I were to be a part of such a club, I would gaze upon my new friends, and I would say, "Friends, let's go to lunch." And then, secure in my new, shared community, I would order a reuben.

Like any sane person, I eat my club sandwich one layer at a time, dealing it off like a deck of cards.

I

I have recently heard that goldfish have good memories. I would like to buy a goldfish so that the next time a person asks me, "How are you doing?" I can reply, "Fantastic. Somewhere, there's a goldfish thinking of me."

I would like to judge the average response to such a statement. And if that person were then to turn around and walk away, casting a curious, or suspicious, glance over his or her shoulder, I would simply return home. I would sit upon the futon bed and stare into the tank, the fish's eyes cast large through the glass, and I would speak to it.

"Remember," I would say, indicating my narrow hallway, my dusty bookshelves, these accidental remainders of life. "Someday all this will be yours."