Scourgecraft Dream theres a winding path through the school ive been attending for some time.

its no particular time, and we walk with no particular purpose. two people walk alongside me as we observe the results of the latest school theme day. there is no particular theme today, or rather, there is, but im not aware. people are dressed strange. the basic idea is that if you dress up in a certain fashion there will be an exemption from all work. so blue pedro stands fully erect by the trumpeter statue. and blue pedro has the glowing eyes and painted overalls that seem to fit todays theme. this is a small hint. weve now wound almost to the edge of school property, and weve come upon a small series of temporary booths, each of which is selling the same thing with small variations. one, which is larger than most others, is apparrently the object of our wandering. upon entering, there is to be no mistake made as to whether were obligated to make a purchase, which should preferably be rather large. the counter is right up front, making it impossible to avoid confrontation with the overzealous clerk. theyre selling cake. they have cake of all kinds, with one exeption. all the cakes are circular. s uare cakes, apparently, did not even occur to the people of this region. not to give you the impression that im a foreigner, mind you! im very much a native of this region, as i refer to it. we only have twenty dollars, or rather, joe only has twenty dollars. hes the one whos buying the cake. as he picks out one of the smaller cakes, after, of course, were subjected to their glorious presentation of cakes we could never even dream to afford, im struck by the fact that i dont want to be here at all. the woman whos job it is to sell our cake makes two parallel lines in the cake with a sharp knife. one of the lines is shorter than the other, and as she pulls the knife from this last line, the excess cake builds up around the end, creating a sloppy careless look. the top of the brown cake is wrinkled, from the use of this knife, which apparently wasnt uit sharp enough to cut neatly the very spongy cake. the cake is very thin. joe is satisfied, however, gets his change, and we all walk out, joe holding his cake and briefcase, and the nameless one and myself with free hands. at once, it seems, we are at a station or theatre of some kind, which, in the least specific description, is very old. joe hands the briefcase, as well as the cake to the nameless one, and we take some old wooden stairs up, and this is presumably the back way. the nameless one is back in the main reception area, waiting in line, or something else we dont uite know. the nameless one is now the possesor of both the cake and the briefcase, and joe and i climb up the back stairs to our apparent destination, in an unfurnished corner not uite at the top of the stairs, next to a bathroom. we stand around for a brief time, but we dont feel time passing, and we have no want of conversation. no particular time arises, nor, presumably, was there such a time previously decided upon. nor, i have decided, was the action joe would now take even a part of the original plan, which i assume there must have been at

some point. joe wanders over to the wall, reaches up, stretching, on his toes, and slaps the emergency fire button. "S#$%&' he says to me as i briefly stare ahead at his calm blonde face. we run back down the stairs, where we encounter a large crowd of people, many of which wear convicting looks on their angry old faces. an old woman screams at joe, and the cops take him in, everyone aware that he, and not i, is the culprit. i walk out untouched, and although i never see him, the nameless one delivers the briefcase to me on the street. back in the old grand station, there is a man on the floor of the tiled bathroom, setting up uarters in the center of each s uare tile. above the bathroom, a man in a newspaper stand opens his display case to drop down a payment, or pick up a pavement from the man on the floor. a uarter, or rather, not a uarter but a silver thick coin of some sort is tossed in the air like magic, and the man on the floor gazes at the result as it lands with a heavy metallic clang. he smiles... back to my story, as i find myself horribly close to home, running, briefcase in hand, to a hot air balloon parked on a hill behind my home. the old man, who i havent mentioned until now in this telling, is a man ive never seen before but know and remember uite strongly. hes a powerful but aging man, and his once useful body is now decidedly not useful at all. we fly up in the balloon, and im clutching the briefcase asking what to do. my instructions are not audibly told to me, nor do i learn them, in the fashion humans learn, taking time and patience. there is simply a point at which i know them, separated from the time at which i did not know them only by an instant. im clutching the case, about to open the latch and dispose of the million dollars in paper money which compoase the contents, when a large flying beast similar to a bird flies by, warning us of his ability to destroy us and our flotation device, while taking our briefcase and ruining our mission. he brushes the balloon enough to send us plummeting down to the very same hill from which we embarked. so the old man and i find ourselves with a briefcase and a damaged balloon. "#())*&' says the old wizard, and i uickly shred the paper million and spread it on the grassy hill. now im running, against the wind, which is not natural wind, and against the will of some being more powerful than i. im running somewhat in the direction of my house, but ive got to dispose of the case. ive got to dump the briefcase in someones garbage can where they wont find it. i cant run, i cant move, im at snails pace. as i reach the house at the end of the block, i barely crawl to the garbage can, but a car comes aroiund the corner. theres a blonde man in a black car, and hes rounding the corner, so i cant dump in the garbage can. i keep running, barely crawling it seems, and he keeps driving, to the hill, or at least by the hill. hes seen the case, or no, maybe not. hell get out of the car and come for me, though. im running, and i dump the briefcase over the tall fence to my neighbors back yard. and im gone. im gone till dark, when ill return to my beautiful house, where my father and mother will greet me happily, with

hugs and warm food. now its dark and i wander in through the back, having opened up the gate, and through the yard i come, about to make my triumphant glorious beautiful entrance. which of those words work best+ hard to say, but none will be necessary. i open the door, and my father and mother greet me, my mother rushing to the door with hugs. my father, with newly blonde hair, is waiting back at the end of the kitchen near the hallway, surrounded by darkness. hes waiting to greet me in a more personal intimate fashion once weve all settled in. %#$S is against the rules. unheard of, for the enemy to enter my home, to be an imposter as a member of my own family. this fuck has displaced my father and misled my mother, and hes going to remain undercover, forcing me to act as though all is good. ill play it cool, wait it out, but this will not prove to be at all good. we have a black car, dont we+ and my father has been moved just three houses down, to the end of the block, to tease me. and then surely he must have recovered the case by now. . in the morning, after ive not slept, after no time has passed for me, and no sleep has even seemed like an option, the blonde father steps in holding a briefcase, and on the briefcase is the mental picture of my father that ive imprinted there, in my head of course. and now ive got several options. or rather, ive got no options, since the moneys not at all available. and joes in jail, or somewhere. and the nameless one is not to be found. the blonde father is right here, however, with uestions. now, ive got several options. each one results in death, and each one results in pain, and each one results with me hurting the ones i love. also, each one results with this blonde devil in my head, and the goddamned briefcase in my fathers yard, and the goddamned thin chocolate cake in the hands of the nameless one. and my goddamned house will fall at the end of each option, and ill have no wizard, no balloon, no million dollars. at the end of each option ill have a green grassy hill and a few scraps of paper, and the memory of a beastly flying lion and a man tossing coins in a tiled basement bathroom, where the clear water drips and the flakes of metal end up, where each tile is covered and the toilets no longer flush.