I move to California in a car. It is the present, and I'm still going sailing in the beginning of December. Also, I have the same amount of money as I do in waking life. When I arrive I go by a hospital, as if in passing. I need a bandage for my finger, kind of like my pinkie, but on a different finger.

I enter the hospital from a side door and meander to the front desk. Some other people think I'm trying to cut them off, but I'm just coming from a different direction.

We would have been first, says a little boy, if we had come your way.

I am driving with Lydia and am unable to brake properly for some reason. We coast through a red light, making her very nervous. I'm on my way to meet with the World Health Director. He is a tank of a man. Black with a wide back, thick fingers and massive arms and legs.

When he shakes your hand, I joke, He is still like seven feet away. You have to shout: 'Hello! Mr. Director!'

Went to Drupal Con Denver, although Denver was not really Denver. It was artsy and had the downtown feel, and there were plenty of people on the streets. One of the first sessions was put on by a chubby guy with crazy hair. He smoked pot and rode a ridiculous scooter and nearly got kicked out. At some point he carried me out of the auditorium as part of his session, although I didn't know him and we hadn't agreed on it.

I've drained the last of the fuel alcohol into the silver stove and I'm heating a long, round bolt there on the fire. It hangs over the searing blue flame from the jaws of gray needle-nosed pliers. The boat is rolling gently beneath me, moored to a solid anchor system underneath the swell and slop of the green sea. An orange sun hangs low on the clouded horizon, illuminating the heavy cumulus clouds that stretch from the surface of the ocean to the thin, wispy air miles above.

She's rolling her own now, says he with a wink and a nod. The taste of tobacco is sour and sweet, yellow and thick. Beneath me the railroad ties swim thrumming in metal rhythm. There's the swaying and the jittering, the way the body jiggles on its bones like leaves on a branch. With identity comes responsibility. I was smoking Danny's cigarettes there for awhile, watching his dry fingers roll those crumbling brown tendrils into white gossamer folds. Those favors weren't for nothing.