I am at home in a big city. It feels like New York, with a texturing of Chicago.

Riding a bus, I turn to the window and see that a text has been etched, as if by a laser but more primitively, more archaically, into the glass itself. I attempt to read the black text, but it is reversed and I must practice reverse reading as the city blocks stream by.

The text concerns a focal event of many decades ago—an event I remember. It was an amalgamation of politics, psychology, ritual enactment—as an art form. I was there at the origin, at the circumference of things and also at the center of things, in the swirling of multitudes and magnitudes of all that was unfurling in the times.

I ask my companion if he can also read this text and relate to it. He says he can.

At that moment, the bus is passing by a vast urban space, a sunken garden. I am aware that this is a former quarry—of unfathomable dimensions. It is a profound downward expanse. As an epochal task, there have now been created pools of crystal blue water with fountains, lagoons, and grottos.

We pass by and arrive at a performance space, rather dingy but workable. Somehow I am aware that the immediate project involves opening an old safe. It is the size of an oven, but its density is formidable. No one alive remembers the combination. So I turn to a group of folks who have gathered, including my companion, and I ask him, “Do you have experience at drilling through combination locks on a safe like this?”

My companion assures me that he does, that he has access to and knows how to use the proper bit and that drilling can commence whenever we want. I am satisfied with that.