I knew I had graduated from the University of Chicago, but now — probably years later — I was attending Yale University for an undergraduate degree. I couldn’t understand my own actions, but I had to do it. I didn’t feel as frightened of failure as I usually do when I am returning to complete the degree I already have.

Someone asked, “How many military officers have you had convicted?” What an odd question. I was sitting, stooping, or kneeling, but I sensed someone behind me. TB was there with a friend or two, and he was holding up both hands with all fingers and both thumbs spread. Before I knew it, I said, “Do you have enough fingers?” He glanced down at me in disgust at the implication. Again, I had blown it. A military lawyer? Is that what he had been? It didn’t seem likely. The number 10 seemed high if he hadn’t been, though, and I knew he’d run out of fingers. But what a strange question — who had asked it and why?

It was time for a class reunion, which involved a train trip. We stayed overnight somewhere; when I returned to my train seat, my computer (Titanium PowerBook) was still there, but the AlphaSmart NEO was missing. I couldn’t remember any of my own movements but in a moment of denial was sure that I had left it in another car and that it had not been stolen.

PS, the office manager, was noncommittal but at least did not condemn me for my foolish actions and assumptions. She moved me to the next car, which was nothing like the comfortable one I had been in. Rows of wooden seats were packed in tightly; from above it looked like a cattle car, possibly with straw on the floor. The conductor told me people chose it because the back part was a swimming pool. Later, it would be more of a pond than a pool, and most people ignored it in favor of a chlorinated resort pool that had taken over most of the rest of the car.

All of us got out at a building, perhaps a shopping complex. I was clutching a handful of thin legal-size folders and my thick wallet awkwardly; hanging onto these would give me a great deal of trouble in my wanderings. The only way I could find to get between the building’s levels were narrow, railless iron steps suspended above an abyss. I walked up two sets of them at different times, but I would have given almost anything to have let go of my dignity and crawled. On the last step to solid flooring, I tripped and for a horrifying moment or two thought I would fall.

As I walked around, I encountered people I thought I knew, like Lynn(e) P. I was confused, uncertain, and addle about whether they were from high school or college, or if they were there as friends of classmates. I didn’t meet anyone I really wanted to see.

I started to worry about missing the train as I didn’t know when it was leaving or how to get back to it. I saw what appeared to be an exodus and tried to recognize someone so I could be sure that it was safe to follow them. Suddenly, I lost the entire crowd. I was alone in the strange building with the terrifyingly tiny suspended iron steps.

I heard someone who tried to reassure me, but it was too late. My trust was no more.

I was at a party at EL’s house, which surprised me by its size and mysteriousness; it reminded me of the house I dream that my late aunt in Bellwood had. I was also intrigued by how she had come by it and how she could afford it. It was nothing like her first modest suburban home I’d known.

JT arrived, and at first I thought to avoid her because I thought she was still angry with me. We ended up on a ride together that went around the top floor on rails. The destination was an author’s book signing, but I was told I must meet this person and tell him (her?) about my great story ideas — except that I don’t have any.

At first we inched toward the booth because the author was so popular. Subtly, the ride began to accelerate and to fly in higher and higher circles. Just as I was sure I would be flung into the heights and die, it stopped near the ceiling. To extract me, the rescuers had to remove my clothes and cover me with hand and bath towels.

I found a tiny little shirt I thought belonged to the daughter of a former co-worker, but she didn’t seem interested. I saw then that it had become a beautiful sweater dress. In the meantime, a little boy kept trying to peer down the back of my pants. Irritated, I looked for his parents, but none were to be seen. His actions and the fact he was getting away with them appalled me as I considered the ramifications of disciplining him myself.

I was on a boat, and with each circuit of the bay it seemed to get larger; the deck rose high above the water’s surface. This alone would have frightened me, but I also noticed that the ship was in pursuit of a young woman. Her name flashed through my mind. The ship, which felt like it was flying faster and faster like the rail ride, was forcing her into a defenseless position. I wanted to tell everyone what was happening, but fear silenced me. I looked down and saw her apparently crushed against a wall. Perhaps it was then I knew who was the villain behind the scheme and lost some of my fear. I tried to tell the others, but they didn’t believe me. All they knew was that they were having fun on a cruise to nowhere.

By talking to them, I had revealed my knowledge, so the villain tried to corner me in a parking lot. As terrified as I was, I sensed that I would escape — and that his victim’s name and my silence would haunt me always.

Finally, he trapped me but I avoided being crushed. He got out of the vehicle and approached me, but I felt that he would have to get close to me to kill me and that he had no physical advantage over me.

I saw a tiny needle in his hand and knew I had to avoid it. We struggled, and he pricked me slightly, but I rationalized that this would not hurt me. I gained partial control of the needle or needles and pricked him back several times — enough to save myself. As I did, I realized that now I was the one committing murder. I felt sad.

An incredibly loud noise, like that of a prop plane, filled the air and woke me up. I was afraid to get up and look out the window because it sounded so close.

I found I was in a dorm room shared with a male roommate. Although it was the middle of the night and I was very tired, there was something we had to see. My brother came along, too.

We found a mobile theater that at first I thought was PuppetBike, but it was an Italian imitation. We stayed a while watching this bright spot on a dark street, where everyone else was slumbering during these wee hours of the morning. Suddenly, they left so abruptly that I could not keep up with them, and to my shock the car departed without me. There I was, alone in a residential neighborhood, with no money or mobile phone and wearing only pajamas.

I was nearly petrified. I knew the police, could I find them, would scoff at me. Finally, after tired, panicked rambling, still stunned with disbelief, I came upon a diner, told the owner my story, and asked to use the phone. She seemed jaded, nonplussed, and reluctant to let me. I don’t remember making the call.

By the time my roommate and brother arrived, I was nearly hysterical with anger and fear. I berated them the whole back, going on about how could they have not noticed I was missing. Not seeing the problem, they ignored me and chatted with each other.

I was at what may have been a movie party with people from high school when I spotted TB. I seemed to be dressed in a showy print — leopard spots? — and thought he surely had to see me at such a gathering.

I started to wonder if he did see me and would never admit it, but I know my own lack of power to compel attention. For the first time, though, I felt optimistic that he wasn’t entirely unaware of me and that someday he would have to grant me my right to be a real person, worthy of at least his notice if not his affection. I woke up disappointed as usual, but strangely optimistic.

I was at my former job, but it was at the Sears Tower. All of it — the building, the office, the people — was unfamiliar, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I went outside.

It was perhaps late fall or early winter, and it seemed like evening although it must have been afternoon. I looked into the windows of an English-style pub and saw an odd assortment of people. Two working-class men were fighting, with one trying to kill the other. I sensed there was something deeper, more far-ranging, and more terrifying behind this.

Shaken, I walked around the block. Behind the Sears Tower, I discovered a rural road with a freshly painted, new red barn at the end of it. To me, it should have been a beautiful sight, but its unreality frightened me, and I hurried back.

The elevator I took wouldn’t stop. It had been hijacked because I and the others on it were a threat to someone. It went up forever, beyond the limits of possibility. When it stopped, somehow it compressed and so did we, so that we were only feet from the top of the shaft. The maneuver was meant to terrify us. It worked.

Someone spoke to us, but I think we saw only toys. One of them may have been a headless doll the size of a toddler. It, or something, pulled the fingers of my right hand and made them longer. I knew this could be reversed by whoever had done it and wished them back to normal. But whenever I looked, they remained abnormally long.

I found a means of escape — a way to slide downward through what looked like tilted fun house tunnels. Only after we had started down did I realize that they were not only painted bizarrely — green, black, and white, in a 1960s hounds-tooth or checked pattern — but they were curving and twisting in impossible ways, like in an Escher painting. They, and the idea of escape, were an illusion. For all we knew, we were in a colorless, straight chute to our deaths. My fingers may not have been stretched, either.

I remembered the peaceful country road with the barn, implausibly appearing on a dark afternoon in the city behind one of the world’s tallest buildings.

I called for the one person in the group who could shatter the illusion confounding us, and I called to her. I felt doomed.

I resolved to visit the country road again. It was convenient and so peaceful.