This must be a long-term paranoia of performance art.

I go to a show, I'm sitting at the end of a row with a good view of the stage, the curtain goes up and the stage is bare. And nothing happens. For an hour. But I can't move, can't change my position, am unable to leave.

Then after I'm terminal with boredom and irritation, I hear a noise behind me. Something cold and metallic is pressed behind my left ear, the pressure increases in intensity, I can feel something warm and wet splashing down my shoulder. I can hear someone behind me getting up to leave, moving away, I can't move, can't turn round, I am growing weaker, my eyes dim.

Someone comes on stage, a woman dressed in Victorian period costume. She says: "Thank you for your forbearance. Due to the unfortunate death of a member of the audience, tonight's performance is cancelled."

EDITOR'S NOTE

The show Grant waits for is of course his own dream. He waits stubbornly but it never starts. Eventually his scheduled dream is canceled due to his unscheduled dream--of his own death.

This is, to use a technical term, weird.

What's it mean? If this were me, I'd figure my dreams were quite mad at me, perhaps for not listening, or not acting on dream advice. But without context, we can't know. Maybe Grant's dreams always play this rough. I'm just glad mine don't.

--Chris Wayan

SOURCE: The Tiger Garden: A Book of Writers' Dreams by Nicholas Royle, 1996, p.92

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