It was growing late; I wasn't going to have time to finish putting the tire back on before darkness fell. When I had taken off the tire, many small metal pieces had been attached to the wheel; the pieces were now lying in the field beside the tractor. Some pieces seemed like junk, but some seemed like tools. A small black drill bit was even among the pieces. It would seem proper to pick up all the pieces before I quit for the day, but since I would be returning in the morning to finish putting the tire on, I thought it would be all right to leave the pieces lie out tonight.

Later, I was in a clerk's office at a courthouse; I had been talking to a woman whom I was representing on a criminal charge. I had been negotiating with the prosecutor, who had made a plea bargain offer of a sentence of ten years probation for the woman. The woman wanted to accept the offer. I asked her if she had ever been convicted of a felony. She told me she had been convicted twice of felonies. I immediately saw that we might have a problem. In order for the woman to receive probation, she must disclose whether she had been previously convicted of a felony. Usually the prosecutor wouldn't give probation if the accused had been convicted of a felony.

I looked over my file and found the woman's criminal record. One prior felony was already listed in the file. Since the prosecutor also had this same file, the prosecutor must already know that the woman had been convicted of one prior felony. So even with the one felony, the prosecutor was still offering probation. But what concerned me was whether the woman had actually been convicted of a second felony. I needed a clerk there in this office to look up that information for me.

When I looked around, I didn't see anyone. About seven dollars was lying on the counter; how easy it would be for someone to take the money. Apparently someone else had been there to pay something, and finding no one there, had simply left the money and a note beside it saying what the money was for.

I walked outside; when I walked back in, no one was there yet, and the money was still lying on the counter. I decided to sit down and wait until someone arrived. I sat for quite a while, and perhaps even dozed off, because when I looked around again, perhaps ten clerks were busily at work in the room. Finally a fellow asked me in a friendly tone whether he could help me. I explained what I wanted, and the clerk immediately began working on it. I had the feeling that the clerks had instructions to always help an attorney as quickly as possible.

The place seemed friendly; it might even have been the clerk's office in Weatherford, Texas.

When I was later alone somewhere, I began thinking about my future. I wasn't content with what I had been doing. Suddenly it occurred to me that I should begin studying philosophy formally in a university. I could even use French and German; I could read French and German philosophers in the original languages. Poetry might even be mixed in with the study, because I thought early philosophies were written in the form of poetry. I could first study in the United States and obtain a bachelor's degree in philosophy, then go to Europe and obtain a doctorate degree.

What kind of philosophy would I study? I thought one of the first things would be the nature of knowledge. That should certainly prove to be interesting enough.

I thought about Rembert Glass (my old philosophy teacher) and how he had studied philosophy. But now he was dead; in a way, I would be taking over his place.

In my hand I was holding a picture of the library at the University of Guadalajara. I remembered this building well; just looking at the photograph made me feel nostalgic about being there. Perhaps I could do part of my studying there.

My old girlfriend Vickie and I had started seeing each other again. I liked being with her very much, but now I had decided to make some fundamental changes in my life. One of those changes was that I wasn't going to have sex anymore. I talked to Vickie about it; she seemed to understand, even though she clearly wasn't going to stay with me. She said something about my now being able to live with my brother Chris, with whom she seemed to imply I had been having some kind of romantic relationship. I immediately let her know that although I loved Chris, there was nothing sexual in my relationship with him. But I wasn't going to be staying with Chris either. I knew he was either going to die or go away.