I was speaking with a man as we were walking down the hall, asking him who he was. This surprised him—but after I told him who I was, he seemed to nod like things were making sense.
man: "Well, that explains it...he's been drinking and partying a lot lately, we were wondering what got into him."me: "You mean like a spiritual possession? Well, don't blame me, I don't remember this place. But I do have theories about how consciousnesses whose bodies are sleeping—like mine—can just wander in. I think it has to do with the host's mind being compromised by other reasons—and they just become generally more vulnerable."
He made a gesture like he was snorting cocaine.
me: "Yes, I think drugs are a major source of putting one into a state where that can happen. Has your friend been using drugs?"man: "I'll take you to who you need to see."
At this point my arm was grabbed by a woman who looked like my grandmother. She was with some other old women who wanted to get my attention. Because I wanted to follow the guy I was talking to, I tried to get free—but was having trouble. I realized she was only holding on to my jacket sleeve, and so I took off the jacket and started to try walking off...but somehow it was like I was still being held by a couple of threads and she was able to pull me back.
me: (irritated) "You're not here right now."I put my hand on top of her head and collapsed her body downwards and she disappeared. Then I wandered out into something that looked like the indoor part of a train station, and there were mall kiosks along the walls. One was a T-Mobile store, and it was closed—which most of the businesses were. There was an information booth with a guy in a uniform.
me: (yelling) "I'd like to see who it was I needed to see!"uniform guy: "You want Mr. Mousaka, over here."
He led me to one of the storefronts, which looked like a fairly ordinary Office environment. There were white lights and a lot of gray, perhaps like a Kinko's, and I saw a man in a gray suit who seemed to have a line forming to see him:
I told him my name and my address, which he seemed to successfully write down on a piece of paper.
mousaka: "You do realize that this first room here, where you are, is the guns and healing division."me: "I don't know. I just know that there's something newsworthy going on here. I mean, here I am—in a 3-D world that is pretty solid..."
At this point I dropped a backpack I was carrying onto the ground, where it landed with a thud.
me: "...and doing all this while my body is asleep. It's like there's a whole parallel universe going on here—you guys living your lives, with people on my planet living theirs—with no knowledge of each other besides what I bring back."The room shifted a bit, and I turned to face two well-dressed Asian women in business suits. They seemed amused.
woman one: "How did the Valring let you through?"(Note: I didn't know the word, but I guess it could have been "Balring" or "Balrog". Valring is my best guess. A "Val Ring" sounds like something out of D&D that you might wear, but in computer/technology terms "Val" is short for value, and "Ring" is used to describe certain networks and data structures.)
woman two: (pointing to my shoulder, smiling) "Ah, it noticed."Looking to my shoulder I saw that the shoulder of my short-sleeve shirt looked like it was being scrunched up by its threads. Moments later I felt a sharp slash across my back and woke up.
