Stepping out of a house into a deck area, I saw a man seated in a chair. He was reading a paper and having some coffee. He reminded me of Mario, the video game character.
me: "It's-a-you, Mario!"man: (getting up) "Hey there."
me: "I'm sorry if it's strange that I'm picking you out to talk to. Do you think it's strange?"
him: "Oh, I don't know. I don't think I'm any less noteworthy than Mario, or a mushroom."
At this point I noticed that there was a giant plastic statue of Mario on the deck, and also a little smiling picture of an anthropomorphic mushroom.
(Note: The mushroom looked a bit like this:
...though since the man I ended up speaking to didn't seem to look like Mario at all at this point, these objects may have appeared because of my initial impression.)
me: "Do you have a name?"him: "Well, I don't go so much for names. But how about 'mace'?"
me: "Ok, mace it is."
him: "Well, see, I'd spell it M-A-I-S-S-E."
me: "I can remember that."
(Note: Maisse is a town in France and a relatively common last name, but not so common as a first name.)
me: "This place reminds me of my grandmother's house. Are you somehow related to me or anyone in my family?"maisse: "Yes, actually."
me: "Um, okay so how do you fit into...the hierarchy? Or not hierarchy, but just what is your relationship to me and my world?"
A small kind of dirty child came barreling into us. I stepped away, fearing an attack. But he just looked at me with big eyes and a dumb look. He kind of smelled bad.
maisse: "Oh nothing to be afraid of, [name] will take care of him. Hmm. But he is kind of a mess."me: "All right back on the topic, I mean, to give an example...are you a person who is...dead?"
maisse: "No, no. But I was trying for that this cycle, wanted to see what it was like. I didn't get picked."
me: "How can you be picked to be...dead?"
maisse: "Well, it's just a thing you can do, it takes about 50 years. Unless you do the roller-coaster and then it's over in two."
(Note: I don't know if he meant a literal roller-coaster, or if he was suggesting that there was some sort of process for expediting one's process by rushing it some other more metaphorical way.)
me: "So...okay, in this position of dead or not dead and descriptive terminology for what people are, what am *I*? And why is it that I'm here mapping out territories of the cosmos that no one from my world seems to know about?"maisse: "You're a programming person."
me: "That's something I do, but...I mean, am I somehow different biologically from people with other skills or jobs? Like...someone who repairs telephones, they'd be technical maybe but would they not be a 'programming person'?"
him: "Right."
Another guy was in the room sitting in a chair, who disagreed with this position. And I woke up.
