I found myself at KK’s house, which I noticed was my aunt’s old house as I imagined it—sprawling, infinite. I excused myself to explore it and take photos, but as happens in the dreams in which this imaginary house of magic appears, I didn’t see any of it.

I was around McCormick Place south of downtown Chicago and had to decide whether to take a bus or ride my bike, which I may have just found. Then I found a motorcycle that also had to go back. I couldn’t ride one and take the other, nor could I take the motorcycle on a bus or in a cab. I discovered the bicycle’s tires were low on air, so I couldn’t ride it after all. I managed to leave both unsecured while I debated with myself what to do at a coffee shop that looked more like a slightly below-ground train platform.

I found myself on the phone with the Flamingo’s manager. She told me a fire had started in my kitchen sink—but in my head I saw the old-style porcelain sink in my old studio apartment. I thought it couldn’t have been too bad, but asked her. “Pretty bad,” she said. I asked her to check on my cat. “No.” “Please?” “No.” And so on. She refused repeatedly to go to the apartment. When I woke up I thought she had to have been in it at some point to know it was “pretty bad.” I couldn’t figure out why she was being unreasonable and feared the worst for my cat and for my personal history.

I was staying at a brick mansion in the country, where there was a living room with several televisions. When I returned I found some young women disconnecting mine, including the cables. By yelling and flailing, I tried to stop them because I didn’t know how to arrange the setup again.

After they disappeared (rather than leaving), I realized my equipment was in a cellar on the second floor, and water on the floor was seeping toward the television. As I considered my next step, I heard someone mention a thunderstorm—no, hurricane—no, tornado—approaching rapidly. We debated its direction and whether it would veer toward us. Then we lay on our stomachs in the cellar that wasn’t a cellar.

The tornado struck. As I lay there, I thought it sounded and felt like a freight train passing over me. I expected it would last only minutes, but it seemed to go on a long, long time. Suddenly it was calm, as though nothing had happened. Everything around me seemed intact.

I pulled aside a heavy curtain and saw the sun, but random clouds formed a new, vaguely human-shaped tornado, which seemed to be considering the direction it should take. Suddenly it veered toward us. We dove to the floor, and repeated the experience.

Afterward I heard the hostess say that there was structural damage to a supporting wall, but she’d called someone, who was on the way to fix it. I mulled the unlikelihood of so little damage and the availability of someone in the storm area to come out so quickly. I looked out again. The tornado funnel was breaking up into tiny clouds, but reforming into a shape like a human figure from southwestern Native American art. It was going to strike again—intentionally.

I tried to go out, but as I was about to walk down the steps I noticed there weren’t any and would have fallen a couple of stories if I hadn’t stopped myself quickly. The outer wall for a hallway was half gone, but guests were picking up the torn-up timber and trying to build some kind of makeshift steps to the broken wall. No one seemed bothered that so much of the house was exposed to the weather.

Below, snow covered the ground, and above the sky was making the transition from sunny brightness to tornado cloud darkness.

I found myself living in an enormous, open space, arranged in a long row like a hotel floor or a ship deck and was excited by the potential — all that room.

The entire family appeared, having driven hundreds of miles to see me. I was surprised, then horrified to find water leaking in through the ceiling in one room. As I walked around, I noticed garbage strewn everywhere. I had no idea how that had happened. I knew only that my interesting, spacious home mysteriously had become a sodden, smelly, uninhabitable mess. I was embarrassed and ashamed.

I wanted to call for help about the leak before it became worse or spread, but the family wouldn’t lend me a phone. Meanwhile, I found out Hodge had attacked V. Her inner forearm had been ripped open, and I could see that she needed stitches right away. She refused, however, even as she kept trying to make the torn edges meet. I apologized and could not imagine how he had done that kind of damage or what could have provoked him.

E. tried to persuade me to help a high school classmate, but for some reason I declined. As suddenly as the family had appeared, they disappeared. The leak stopped. I was left to clean up all the garbage that had proliferated out of control.

Even as I was swooping it up by the armfuls to get rid of it, I found that kids had thrown out many useful items and that I was going to have to sort through the smelly, decaying mess piece by piece. I was horrified and sickened by this turn my life had taken.

Next thing I knew, an infomercial was being taped in my apartment in one area, while I was in a play that involved my being swung around — until the electricity failed.

As suddenly as the family had appeared, I met two of my classmates, including TB, who as usual didn’t see me or know me or acknowledge me in any way. He’s never snobbish, just oblivious.

I found out the show was to continue in New Mexico, but I lost both classmates as the one who at least knew me had tired of me. I also learned that the apartment building manager had decided to use my apartment for public works, for example, large parts of it had been converted to soup kitchens. I wanted to say something to the manager but was still fixated on how I could be so invisible to the one human being I would like to see me. And on how V.’s arm could be saved without stitches.

I was returning to my room in a dormitory when I made what I thought was an innocuous suggestion to J. After becoming defensive and angry, he locked me out of my room — I realized too late that he had the key.

I didn’t want to call the police because doing so might affect a deadline he was trying to meet. In a panic, I climbed to the floor above my room and saw that it was completely open on top — there was no ceiling, just like in a dollhouse. I couldn’t imagine how I’d lived there without noticing or knowing that. As I looked down, I saw a figure dragging J. away while looking up at me and grinning evilly. It was someone I used to work for. I wondered about his new role as dormitory head.

A vampire had threatened to get me, only I didn’t know how. Soon I recognized him near me in different guises, first as a child, then as an elderly woman who changed into a beautiful young woman. I wasn’t afraid to use my strength even against such incongruous characters, but each succeeded in biting me, usually in the arm, but not enough to break the skin. I felt strong but also like he might be toying with me.

I’d gotten into an elevator with a cousin who was sitting in a folding chair. The elevator started to go down with him, but my feet weren’t touching the floor. I panicked, although at times my feet did touch. The elevator stopped between floors, with the chair now folded up against the door and me suspended, yet not suspended. It was nighttime, and I began to fear that we would never be found.