The Spectral Link Read Free Page B

exist in the world but had to get on with things in any case, whether demoralized or, ideally, in a more or less complacent manner. Roughly speaking, these are the only two ways one can exist, whatever one’s context in the universe, and whatever destiny has dealt you within that context, as I later came to understand more profoundly. Actively seeking an all-new context was, of course, quite another matter, and quite an unusual one.
    Following my meditation practice that day, Dr. O sent me packing. That is how I thought of his manner toward me as I reflected on it later in the day. Dr. O sent me packing , I said aloud while standing at the kitchen sink in my one-bedroom apartment. He was practically pushing me out the door as I was asking him if he would rather I did not speak of the Dealer in future sessions. In a haughty tone, he said that whatever I determined to speak of or not speak of in our sessions was entirely my decision. Once outside, I heard the door behind me slammed shut and locked.
     
    ***
     
    Despite Dr. O’s seeming dismissal of our discussion regarding the Dealer as well as the business of an all-new context, I continued to have dream occasions in which both played a central role. One of them took place in a setting I had often frequented in my dreaming life. I viewed this visionary environment much the same as I did the Dealer’s “chain of galaxies” showroom, which is to say that it seemed to me an analogue of the waking world, however superficially at odds they appeared. In these dreams, I would always be in what I can only describe as a multi-level bazaar, a marketplace without borders that was filled with what seemed an infinite number of crumbling structures of all shapes, many of them with odd, unnamable objects arranged behind warped windowpanes—contorted blobs and twisted figurines contrived and aligned to forbidding effect. And everywhere there were carts with grotesque merchandise dangling from canopies with a leathery appearance, a dried and cracked material that I knew to be human flesh. Both above and below me were dark expanses of jagged stairways and corridors, fragile walkways between tilting towers, and undulating ramps that spiraled down into shadowy depths and upwards into shadowy heights. It was on one of these ramps high above me that I spied the Dealer, who called my name in a reverberant voice. I moved toward him but realized with frustration that I had no idea how he could be reached. Then suddenly I was standing before him. He started walking away from me, gesturing over his shoulder for me to follow, yelling over the din around us, “I got this place cheap. Much better than my old one, don’t you think?”
    I had to agree with him, if only because the shambles surrounding us was just a pile of my own dream manifestations. On that occasion I had a fixed awareness that I was dreaming, which has its benefits and drawbacks depending on how much control I can exert over my surroundings. In the next instant, the Dealer and I were sitting on crates across from each other in what appeared to be a storage room for a manufacturing plant of some kind.
    “So,” the Dealer began. “Your all-new context. Should we proceed?”
    “I can’t answer to a mystery. And would my answer make any difference?”
    “Not really,” he said. “But I don’t believe you will object to what is on order.”
    “It shouldn’t matter whether I object or not. I’m lucid at the moment, if you haven’t noticed.”
    “Nevertheless, you could lose control just like that,” said the Dealer, snapping his fingers. I knew he was right, so I refrained from making a fuss. The last thing I wanted was to find myself crawling through an ever-narrowing tunnel with some monstrosity at my heels. “However,” the Dealer continued, “I absolutely know you will not object.”
    “I object to all things but one—euthanasia by anesthetic. You know that, among other things about me.”
    “Yes. Not even a