True to a recurring theme, I was at university. Someone asked me why, so I told her that I worked for a quarter and studied for a quarter, although I did not undertake a full load. She asked me rhetorically if I had graduated, and I said I had. Although I did not know her, I recognized her as a former classmate and wondered why there were other classmates there years later.

In my room I found my former roommate and one of her friends. They struck a deal with me in which they could have the room to themselves for study in the morning while I planned to be at the bookstore and at classes that I couldn’t remember or find.

The room was long, as though two people might share each end of it, with a fireplace for each person. I wanted to get a fire started but didn’t know how to put one out. Water seemed inadequate, and I had a vision of it fueling the flames. I noticed then that my desk in front of the fireplace appeared to be on fire, but it didn’t feel hot, and there was no fire when I opened the drawer. I wondered about putting it out, too, this fire that I couldn’t see or feel.

When I looked out the window, to my horror I saw a little blond boy crash through the trapdoor of a fireplace in the room above. Even then this struck me as odd because the second-floor room would have had to extend beyond mine for me to see the fireplace and trapdoor. Perhaps it was a balcony. To my relief, the boy appeared to be fine.

Some girls tried to connect me with a paraplegic or obese Todd Rundgren (I was never sure which he was). They wanted to watch, and I was ambivalent about both him as a partner and about performing in public, so to speak.

At times I would be very hot; at others, I would be appalled by it all. I described the Todd Rundgren of the dream as 6’1″ and weighing a little over 200 pounds, realizing that that didn’t sound obese. He wore dark glasses. We were left alone, and I was confused by all the changes and contradictions.