I hollered out to the woman inside and told her I wanted several things including a couple fish sandwiches.

Overtop the take-out window was a large glass box which contained white stuff used for topping on food. Upon closer scrutiny I also noticed a goat inside the glass box. I wanted some of the white topping on something I was buying, but obviously the goat was getting mixed up with the topping. As the woman prepared to scoop the topping out of the glass box and put the topping on the food which she was going to give me, I told her I didn't want the topping since the goat was in it – I thought the topping would have hairs on it. I told her she needed to take the goat out and make up a new batch for me.

We drove away and went to a restaurant in Portsmouth across the street from where my father had his real estate office between 1963 and 1967 and we began eating. After a while, my sister joined us. I quickly learned that my sister hadn't been living with my father and that she had begun dating some fellows. My father was trying to prevent her dating certain people and was trying to require her to obtain his permission before she went out. My sister (rebelling against that idea) said she was going to date whomever she wanted. When my father told her to ask me what I thought about it, I told her she should do what my father told her to do. I told her she wouldn't be able to work for him if she didn't do what he told her.

I noticed my sister wasn't wearing a top and I tapped her on the back.

My father was a lawyer. He said he was handling auto cases and was charging 50 percent. When I told him most lawyers charged a third, he said he had recently turned down a case because it only paid a third. He said that he was charging 50 % and that he wasn't planning to lower his rate because he was satisfied with what he was charging. I thought his rate was exorbitant, but apparently he was getting away with it.

He talked about getting cases and he said he might even get a big muscular dystrophy case. He said much money could be made from those cases. He wanted me to stay in Portsmouth with him and help him practice law there.

One Friday I had gone to see a black woman at a housing project. Since her house had been posted for foreclosure for the following Tuesday, I wanted to talk with her about buying the house. After I stepped up to the door, she answered and invited me in. Probably in her late 50s, she lived there with several children. When I asked her if she had received any notices of her property having been posted for foreclosure, she said she hadn't. Quite concerned, she wanted to know what she should do about it.

Although the house was rather run down, I was still interested in purchasing it. She said that she wasn't interested in selling, and that she only wanted to catch up on her delinquent mortgage payments, which were apparently only about $35 per week. I explained to her how she could probably contact the people to whom she owed the money and pay it. I gave her my business card and told her to call me if she had any problem. Thinking I might even be able to loan her some money, I said, "Please call me."

After I had spoken, I thought I had been too obsequious by saying "please." I hadn't needed to say that.

I still wasn't ready to leave. After I sat down a while in the front room where some of the children were, two goats (a small gray one and a large white one) walked into the room.  Even though I was afraid the goats might try to bite me, I began petting both, and they didn't bite me. After I mentioned that the goats were nice to pet, I thought I heard one goat repeat, "Yes, they're nice to pet."

When I finally stood up to leave, I stepped into the little reception room in front of the front door and looked outside, where I saw a large grizzly bear playing with a girl. Seeing the bear, I was rather afraid to go outside. I looked at the bear more closely and saw that its chest had been cut open so its hair was just hanging on it. I could see the bear's innards. Although part of the entrails-area was hollow, I could still see the bear's heart and ribs. What I saw was rather bizarre.

While I was in Portsmouth, standing on the levy by the Ohio River just south of the U.S. Grant Bridge (which connects Ohio and Kentucky), I heard a splash, looked toward the bank and saw a number of people fishing in he river. I also saw quite a few fishing rods standing on the shore with their lines out in the water. The splash had apparently originated from one rod which had fallen into the water. The fishing line of the fallen rod was stretched taut and the rod was being pulled toward the left over the surface of the water. Someone realized a fish was on the line and the person managed to grab the rod. Finally the fish was pulled up on the bank – it was as long as a person. I felt sorry for the fish; I disliked the idea of so many people fishing in the river and depleting the fish.

When I looked toward the bridge, I thought I saw some logs floating under the bridge, but looking closer, I realized the objects were seals crossing the river. A long line of seals was moving north along the opposite Kentucky shore of the river. On the opposite bank I could also see other wild animals, including antelope and zebras.

I also noticed that behind me on my side of the river were some white cows walking along the levy. I had the feeling the cows had come from India.

The animals on the other side of the river apparently were crossing the river under the bridge; when the animals reached my side of the river, they began running toward me and the many people around me. It was a virtual stampede. I quickly ducked behind a tree as the animals raced past me. I didn't see anyone being run over, but I realized if I were to trip out from behind the tree I could possibly be seriously injured.

Glancing to my right, I noticed a small white goat standing near me. The other animals raced past the goat.

When another man crowded in next to me behind the tree, I thought other people were also going to crowd in. Some policemen were attempting to control the stampede and finally it stopped; but it looked as if the animals might begin running back in the opposite direction.

I ran over to my left to some concession stands on wheels and took shelter among them.

I thought my ex-wife Bonnie might be down close to the bridge. Concerned about her safety, I thought I needed to reach her so the two of us could board a car and watch everything from the car.

I went to a movie theater and sat in a seat about half way down the aisle. The movie to be presented dealt with a famous writer and directly in front of me, an exhibit had been set up which told about the writer. A boy walked up, picked up something off a shelf of the exhibit and then showed it to me.

Part of the exhibit consisted of what appeared to be a fireplace, including the chimney and mantle; I figured the fireplace must have derived from the writer's home. Suddenly the same boy began digging into the bottom of the chimney with his bare hands and soon dug down quite deep, pilling up black dirt in front of the chimney. He was obviously looking for something which I imagined the writer must have once hidden under the chimney.

The boy disappeared into the hole which he had dug. When he finally reappeared, he handed me what he had found. Examining closely, I saw that it was a tablet of lined yellow paper. When I opened the tablet, I was surprised to see very precise, neat printing in blue ink covering all pages. The writing seemed done in numbered paragraphs. Some headings of the paragraphs were underlined and I read one underlined part in which the words "awareness" and "expressiveness" appeared.

I immediately showed the tablet to a woman sitting by me who was my mother (not my actual mother). As I told her the tablet might be worth a million dollars, I tried to hold the tablet low so no one else in the theater would see it. I immediately decided I was going to try to take the tablet, and holding it behind me, I headed for the door. When I reached the front of the theater, I saw a woman who worked for the theater and I became afraid she might see what I was doing; but I quickly slipped past her without incident and found myself outside.

I felt exuberant. I was sure the tablet was an important manuscript which no one had ever read. If necessary, I could show the tablet to a handwriting expert to prove that the famous writer had actually written it himself.

Off to my right, something else caught my attention. A boy (around 15 years old) had tied several ropes around a goat and had tied big rocks to the end of each rope. The goat had strayed into some small trees and the ropes had become entangled in the trees. The boy was trying to untangle the ropes. I scrutinized the boy's face and saw that his face had very unusual goat-like features itself. His goat-face seemed very unusual.

***

Several children were gathered in a circle and were talking about what to do with the manuscript. They seemed quite solemn. One of them said that a girl there would have to marry a boy there who was smaller than the girl. The girl accepted her responsibility, although she indicated the actual decision would have to be made later. Trying to choose her words well, she talked about the "weightiness" and "ponderousness" of the decision.

Steve talked about the painting which apparently was of a brother of his who had died when the brother had been quite young, even though the man in the painting looked as if he might be in his early 40s. Steve had somehow figured out what the brother would have looked like if he hadn't died.

I looked over the paintings on the other panels, but they weren't yet finished. I told Steve how impressed I was by his work. He hadn't been studying painting long, and I was surprised he had such obvious talent. This was what I had always thought Steve should be doing. He seemed so happy doing this and he seemed as if he were finally able to express himself. He seemed so different now from when he had been doing a different kind of work which he hadn't really liked. Apparently he now worked constantly every day on his paintings.

Steve asked me to help him do some painting. He had a sculpture and after he gave me some red paint to put on the sculpture, I lightly painted part of the sculpture with the paint.

When I had finished, I began brushing some beige paint onto a painting, but I suddenly realized that Steve hadn't told me to do that. I pointed out what I had done, but Steve was unperturbed.

A man who was Steve's father walked into the room. It was difficult to tell how old the man was. He told me that he and his wife had always liked me because I had always been able to detect Steve's artistic abilities, whereas most people couldn't. He thought I knew Steve's talents would someday blossom.

I thought I was a lot like Steve. I also had been doing some painting lately, but I knew my real art was writing dreams. I could sit and write dreams for hours and hours, just like Steve could paint. I told Steve I had also been doing some art work. I also knew I liked to make collages, but I didn't think I could use the same skill to make collages that I used when I wrote dreams.

I mentioned to Steve that I was living close to him in a big old house which was really a run-down mansion. Fixing up the house would require quite a bit of money, but I liked the house.

Later, Steve and I were at my house, and I was going to show him a painting which I had done. It was actually a painting and collage combined. Basically it was the life-size image of a reclining man. The man's head, clearly visible, was tilted forward, as if he were looking out over his body, but his eyes were closed as if he were sleeping. His body consisted of abstract designs and pictures, and new ideas for the design came to me even as I was perusing the work. I had a small Christian cross which I wanted to put among the other pictures on the body of the man. The cross was supposed to be very symbolic of something.

Finally I did manage to get Walls' attention and he stopped the car. He began backing up, but I was afraid it was too late. To my surprise, however, right up above us on the side of the hill, sere a large cheetah and a smaller young one. They were truly beautiful. I sat in awe admiring them. Not far from them I also saw two large, white mountain goats, the kind with long hair and short straight horns. They likewise were truly beautiful.

I was with my father and my mother in a car which my father was driving through a mountainous area. As my father took a road which meandered up and down over the mountain tops, I became enthralled by the beauty of the scenery. When I noticed many of the trees had been cut down, however, I said something about how man had simply come in there and chopped down the trees. On one mountain stretched a long power line; large trees had been cut down to make way for the power line. Some extremely large logs were piled up on top of the mountain; one log was placed to hold the others from rolling down the mountain.

I was walking on the large hill behind the Gallia County Farmhouse (located on the 386-acre farm of my paternal grandparents in southeastern Ohio), looking at how the brush and trees had grown up. I had been farther up on the hill looking at walnut trees, and I was now returning to the Farmhouse to fetch a chainsaw so I could cut some brush away from the trees. I also wanted to cut down some old trees which had died and I especially wanted to cut down some of the large grape vines which I saw around me and which destroyed the walnut trees. Earlier, while up on the hill, I had noticed one group of about 20 trees in a row, as if they had been planted that way.

The area where I was walking was quite steep and rocky. Finally I came to a large old tree which was lying on the ground and which appeared to have been there many years. I lay down next to the tree and wondered if I pushed it whether it might dislodge and go tumbling down the hill. But I thought if I did that, the rocks above me might break loose and come tumbling down on me. After lying there a while, I realized I was in a sleeping bag. Being in the sleeping bag was fortunate, because I saw a large white wolf walking up the hill toward me. I was immediately alarmed, fearing the wolf would attack me. I pulled the sleeping bag closer around me for protection. When the wolf was almost on top of me, it turned and bounded away.

Looking around I noticed a large brown antlerless deer climbing over the rocks not far from me. I attentively admired the beautiful sleek animal as it climbed up the side of the craggy hill. I recalled that at one time white mountain goats used to climb over the rocks, but they had long since disappeared. However, when the deer reached some of the upper rocks, some other animals joined it, and they looked like they might be mountain goats. From where I was, I couldn't tell whether the animals were goats or deer. When they entered a cave near the top of the hill, I wondered whether they were safe from the wolf. Apparently they were.

Now I realized I should have spent more time on my trip to South America looking at the sky. I wouldn't often have such an opportunity to look at the sky of the southern hemisphere.

At the moment, I was at a hospital, visiting a fellow who was lying in bed. We were talking about this subject and he told me about books which showed different portions of the sky of the southern hemisphere. He also said falling stars were more prevalent at certain times. Right now the falling stars weren't numerous, but the books would tell me when they would be.

As we talked, I developed a mental image of the night sky of the southern hemisphere. I envisioned a constellation of a cow or goat on a spit hanging over an open fire. The constellation seemed to cover the entire sky.

My second wife Carolina (who strikingly resembled ex-wife Bonnie) and I had just moved into a house in Portsmouth. (The small house appeared to be the same one where an old girlfriend, Jan Hughes, had lived when I had been in the tenth grade. She had been the first girl to let me put my hand in her pants.)

As I was standing in front of the house, looking across the street, I noticed a flock of 20-30 white chickens in front of a neighboring house. Curious that the chickens would be running loose in town, I moseyed over to the neighboring house to have a better look. Once I reached the house, I was surprised to see quite an assortment of animals – white pigs, white ducks and a black goat. I reached out my hand to try to pet the goat, but he pulled back. I also noticed a swarm of ants on the sidewalk. The ants appeared to be part of the menagerie, and I specifically noted that they weren't dangerous fire ants, but smaller ants that probably didn't bite.

I realized why all the animals were there: this was some kind of day care center for children, and the animals were kept to entertain the children. Even the ants were part of an ant colony which the children could watch. Harboring the animals seemed like a good idea to me.

An elderly man and woman who ran the house walked out and spoke to me. They told me my wife had visited them the day before, and they related a rather bizarre story about how my wife had started an argument with someone at the house. The police had been called and my wife had been arrested.

This story was a bit upsetting to me. At the same time, I was intrigued that my wife had been arrested and hadn't told me about it. I turned and hurried back to my house, anxious to confront my wife with the story.

She was standing in the front room when I walked in. She acted coy when I asked her about having been arrested. I wasn't angry. Instead, I began to feel aroused by the whole incident. Being arrested seemed out of her character, and the thought of it made me want to make love with her. I suggested that we escape to the bedroom. She was willing and we headed down the hall toward the back room. The only problem was that we had two children also in the front room, and I didn't want to leave the children there alone. I hesitated to take the children back to the bedroom with us, but I decided they were so young, even if they saw my wife and me making love, they wouldn't know what was going on, and would never remember it.

***

My wife, the two children and I were in a car which my father was driving along curvy country roads, headed from Portsmouth to the Gallia County Farm. My father was driving quite erratically and much too fast. I had noticed that he had seemed to be having mood swings lately. Sometimes he seemed bloated and lethargic, hardly able to move. At other times – like now – he seemed manic and nervous, full of energy. When I mentioned my observations to him, he just ignored me, and began telling a story about the Farm.

He said that the field behind the Farmhouse had recently caught fire, and that all the grass had started burning. The fire had traveled so quickly, it had almost reached the tobacco barn at the top of the hill behind the Farmhouse, but fortunately, the fire had been stopped, and no serious damage had resulted.

As he continued speeding down the road, I suddenly remembered I had loaded some boxes of my belongings in the back of the vehicle, which had a rear-end like a pickup truck. I looked back through the rear window and saw two large boxes in the back. On top of one box lay a thick folder which contained pages of dreams which I had written. Suddenly the folder flew off the back and off the side of the road, onto the other side of a barbed wire fence, landing in a field.

I screamed to my father that he must stop – I couldn't leave my dreams out there in the field. After he pressed on the brakes and came to a stop, I jumped from the truck and ran to the field.

When I reached the folder of dreams and picked them up, they weren't lying in the field, but inside a small white room which looked like a classroom. Two other people, a man and a woman were sitting in the room. I immediately recognized them – they belonged to a group of people who regularly came together to talk about their dreams. I was only tangentially involved with the group. Although I had participated in the group before, I didn't lend much importance to it.

I certainly didn't have time to stay there right now, even though I knew a meeting was supposed to take place in a little while. A clock on the wall said it was ten till eight, and I knew the meeting was supposed to begin at 8:30. Obviously several more people would show up before 8:30. I quickly mumbled that I couldn't stay now, but that I might return later.

The man and woman were already talking about a dream. One of them held it up in front of me – the dream was neatly typed on a piece of paper. They said the dream contained a "truism," and I stopped long enough to agree with them. I even mentioned that I had often found that dreams contained truisims. But actually, I wasn't even sure what a "truism" was. The word wasn't one which I normally used. Although I thought a "truism" had something to do with the "truth," I wasn't quite sure.