They're like seaweed, they gather around your ankles when you wade out of the deep sea. You bring with you whatever you gathered near to the beach. But it ain't the whole story of your dreamlife.

--

I whip a Uie on Santa Monica, as I know the road descends into a
cobbled narrow passage among stucco dwellings at that point. No
place down there to park. I park. Here they come, the crew.

We are a movie set. These are the principals. The director is a
stoic named Mikey, and he shrugs a lot. Stoics do that. He
says, "After all, what can you do?" He means Hamner "has the cut."

Hamner is the lead actor, and "having the cut" means his contract
allows him to decide the way the picture will run. There are, for
instance, two endings. One of them, all agree, is a fitting and
satisfactory blow-off of all the emotional steam built up over the
previous hour and a half. The other features Hamner in a memorable
moment for which he will be remembered just as Albert Finney was for
the "I'm not gonna take it anymore" outbursts in Network. memorable
moments do tend to be remembered; that's what makes them so
memorable.

Hamner favors the second ending.

"What can you do?" shrugs Mikey.

I'm a bit player. I say to some stunning ladies near me, after all,
I'm a bit player; I have five minutes of screen time. Were it
fifteen, I would be a character actor. They giggle politely.

There is an elegant older lady in a bathtub of the metallic odd-
shaped sort of the nineteenth century. The kind you see in western
movies in technicolor. She is humming to herself.

Two very beautiful youngsters bustle into the room. Oh, Auntie,
they say. Such a lovely tub. May we? They are twins, and they are
very young, and their beauty walks about in the room, kicking over
chairs. They are unabashed blank of clothing in a moment.

They are in the tub, laughing, splashing. They play and they laugh and their laughter sounds crystal.

Time passes.

The older lady picks up the phone. She is alone now, on her bed.

"Hamner? This is your mother, darlin'." She waits. "Listen, Mikey's lovely daughters just paid me a nice visit. Yes, they are. Say, listen, Hamner?

"Give Mikey whatever he wants."


--
For those wishing the ancient Vienna version of dream study:

Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams, Table of Contents