I got a job organizing confessions that were either non-coerced or
not given under oath. I am unclear of the status of these confessions
or of their value, but the job interested me enough to make an elaborate
2-trains-and-a-bus commute to the office.
The subway train conductor announces the World Trade Center stop. I take
the escalator to the WTC Concourse, which I find either fully restored or
never destroyed. The buildings are gone but I find myself looking up for
them.
I realized I left my bag on the train. The bag, and a scrap of paper
in particular, had the information about my new job. It was the only way I
could know where to go, who to call, or the name of the company. I
remembered none of these things.
An emptiness filled me, and in the mental weakness of the moment I
imagined that this paradox presented a philosophical abyss that none
could rationalize.
I went back down to the subway to see if I could find the bag, realizing
then that there never was a bag, that the job I wanted was in the Twin
Towers, and that the scrap of paper I sought disappeared 15 years from
now.
Filled with emptiness. Awake it sounds like a feeble philosophical
dilemma, even a cliché. In the dream it caused dry heaves of the
soul, which come to think of it sounds like another cliché.
