I must have gone to college because I was in a dormitory with two rows of beds. I picked the fourth one in. To my surprise, my boxes were full of old sheets and blankets from childhood I’d forgotten about and other things I didn’t need. I wondered how I’d gotten it all there and why.

I must have gone out, but not to class. I wondered why I’d returned to college when I hadn’t planned to go to classes. When I returned, I couldn’t get in because I didn’t have a key. After I did get in, I saw all the beds, some occupied, were made up with my old sheets and blankets. I couldn’t find my bed or keys, which added to my stress. I gave an enraged speech, then went around taking off all the sheets.

Somehow it happened again. I called the college administrator’s office in front of them. Of course he wasn’t in. I yelled at them about being ill, but they didn’t care. I took back the sheets and blankets again, but this time I looked at each in turn and asked who wanted to have their face broken. If they didn’t choose, I would. Part of me wanted to. Part of me didn’t. I called the administrator’s office again to avoid a greater confrontation. The girls looked at me sullenly and unrepentantly, I thought. They were going to force to me to choose, then see what I would or could do.

I’d heard (or possibly saw) that Anne of Green Gables — or was it Megan Follows? — had been on a bus that I sometimes take, which seemed odd for many reasons. Somehow I knew she wanted a keychain figure of herself (the actor? or the character?), which I had or could get so I took the bus in hopes of “running into” her.

I worked up the nerve to talk to her and mid-conversation remembered I’d left my purse behind on a seat. When I looked, it was gone. This surprised me.

Next I found myself in a filthy beauty parlor where a rat was nosing around on the floor.

I had no money and no phone and no way to contact my parents to pick me up, where ever I was. Panicked, the rare and interesting encounter (with an actor? or a fictional character?) took a back seat to the terror of being stranded.

I came back to my shared desk at work and discovered one of three figurines (trolls?) was missing, but I couldn’t remember what the missing one looked like. I was upset by its loss nonetheless.

Dark stuff was smeared all over the desk, which could be explained by the two balls of graphite I eventually found, first one, then the other.

I opened the drawer to find what looked like sawdust and wood flakes.

Someone sitting in my chair had moved when I returned, but she had no explanation and had not seen anything.

I doubted myself over the third figurine.

After time had passed, a note appeared written clumsily on tattered cardboard explaining someone in their area had used my desk to shred particleboard. To compensate me for the inconvenience, they had ordered me office supplies. Awkward drawings accompanied the text.

Unrelated, I later headed to Human Resources, but kept finding myself in a high-rise mall-like setting with many unusual shops and lots of workers browsing.

I had to get back (having never made it to HR), but I couldn’t find an elevator. I thought I had seen one but it went missing. Finally I discovered one hidden behind a conventional office door, but it was up three steep, oddly angled steps that I couldn’t navigate — but I tried.

A woman stuck her head out of a window in the lower part of the frosted glass elevator door to see if I was coming but I said I’d catch the next one. I was very late already, though, and there was no way I could get up those three steps.

A girl I knew had a bull. A boy asked her to let it out of its pen, which she did. Nothing happened.

Later the same boy asked me to let the bull out. The other girl had, so I figured it would be all right if I let it out, too. The bull ran out and chased the boy up several sets of steps to a platform. Second guessing myself and feeling guilty, I wondered if the platform could support the bull’s weight.

I heard a cry.

The girl found out what I’d done and became angry. I was frightened. I’d seen crows and vultures collecting around the sides of the structure but not at the top.

I went up, dreading what I’d find. The bull was gone. The boy was there, but now he was a girl (and had always been a girl). She was pale and walked down the steps painfully as though horribly injured where I couldn’t see, but said she was fine. Again I agonized over what I’d done and why it was wrong when the bull’s owner had done the same thing with no harm.