Sleepers All

dreamed 2008/8/22 by Wayan.

I'm in San Francisco, in a flat on Geary Street with a tired flock of writers and reporters: migrant birds of news (I won't say vultures). What event? Oh, let it wait. Too tired tonight. We settle down to sleep sardined on beds, sofas, even rugs... except for three. A florid old reporter, hard-drinking by his glow interviews writer Orson Scott Card, who says "Yes, perceptive question. In this new book, as in my early work like Wyrms, I try to work out personal obsessions, yet let the book walk the edge of sick; don't enrage readers but keep them upset." I'm a fan of Card's, and try to interject "I noticed that about Wyrms and--" Catch myself. Nearly added "Firefly" which isn't Card at all; Piers Anthony! Who wants to be lumped with him?

But reporter and Card are both too beat to hear a sleep-addled fan. Card shuffles onto a full bed; in moments he's inert. The reporter flops on a couch. I ask "What paper you with?" "The Daily News." In his meaty fist he holds no pen, but shiny new crescent wrenches, pliers. I joke "What fine new clubs to whack me with for keeping you from sleep." He grunts and rolls off the sofa to the floor! In seconds, Big Drunk Wolf's first snore. Now what? Around me, sleepers. Bored. Thirsty, squeeze a little lemon in water, drink... It's dull awake alone! And then learn I'm not: I wake for real. Me too. A sleeper all along.