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Dream Surfer
Aidan Monahan fluttered his lids, realizing he had drifted off in the middle of his own meeting. He turned from the window as Kent Holmes wrapped up the marketing piece. “Import issues should be minimal, if we license in with a high-end distributor. Sharper Image? Do we know where somebody can go to buy the Dream Surfer yet?” As soon as the words passed his lips, Kent winced, and muttered a “sorry-,” but a venomous glare from Aidan cut him off mid-word. “It’s called Product X for a reason, Kent. Come on. We are completely exposed here. Until the patents are in place, this thing has no other name. I can de-bug this room, but I can’t de-bug your brain- yet.” Aidan offered up a thin, conciliatory smile. Tia Rowan flashed a chirpy grin to dial down the tension. “We don’t know what the barriers to entry’ll be yet, since we don’t know precisely how we are going to achieve ecstasy in la-lah land. Aidan’s right. We have to keep this buttoned up.” Tia Rowan was a graduate of the Wharton School. She had gone on, after her Master’s, to pursue her real love, mechanical engineering. She was brilliant at facilities and line design. Her raven-black hair sported dark red tints that lent her an edgy, almost gothic appearance. Her high cheekbones accentuated the effect. She would have looked at home on a throne next to Ramses II. By the time those who underestimated her realized she was even more brilliant than she was beautiful, she was usually eating their lunch. “So what do you want to cover today, Aidan? You feel okay with where we are at this point?” Kent tapped his pencil, careful to use the eraser end on the barren table top. “Sorry. I have a little surprise. The guy I mentioned last week. He should be here any moment.” Aidan drummed his fingers on the conference table, which doubled as his dining room table. Normally one would not discuss international product sales with the president of a company whose corporate headquarters was in his dining room. Aidan Monahan’s corporate meetings were unique in another way. There wasn’t a scrap of paper in sight. For a doodler like Tia Rowan, this was frustrating. But she accepted the rule, as she accepted Aidan for what he was – a genius. Aidan moved to answer a knock at the door, and Tia turned to Kent. “I really think he may be on to something big again. What’s your take? Kent pushed crumbs of his vanished bagel around the tea plate in front of him. “I’m here, aren’t I?” They both turned as Aidan entered, followed by a shy-looking older man in a colorless sweater, who smiled as if he expected a blow. “If I may,” Aidan gestured first to Tia. “Tia Rowan. I’d like you to meet Fletcher Anton. Fletcher is a Professor Emeritus at Smith College. I met him at a Dream workshop in the spring, and he struck me as one of the few in the field who had both feet on the ground.” He turned to Anton. “I hope that doesn’t offend you. There are just some very…colorful characters in the dream industry.” “Tia is handling production and quality control. She’ll keep our secrets secret – patent rights and that sort of thing -- and keep us out of jail as well, with product liability and safety concerns.” “Doctor Kent Holmes is our resident neurologist and drug dispenser.” Kent stretched his lanky form across the table to offer his hand. “He is a Ph.D. in residence at the Eastern Virginia Medical School. And he loves to play with chemistry sets.” Introductions completed, Fletcher looked about the dining room. “So this is where it all happens,” he said, with a vaguely puzzled air. “Will Product X be the next Walkman, do you think?” So Fletcher had taken some time to consider the commercial applications of the field of dreams. Aidan thought this was not such a bad thing. It is amazing how people can be motivated to respond, when a great deal of money’s at stake. “I wouldn’t go that far. We can tell you we are hoping for something more than the next pet rock.” Aidan gestured to a chair at the end of the table. “Unless you’d prefer to stand.” Fletcher slid into the seat. He gratefully accepted Tia’s offer of coffee, and pushed the chair back a bit. “Everything about Aidan’s instruction for this briefing was pretty straightforward up to the point where he said, ‘Nothing in writing.’” The others grinned with sympathy. Tia set the coffee down, sweetener packets and a small cup of cream on the side. Fletcher relaxed a bit as he doctored his coffee, shaking a single packet of sweetener into the dark brew. Aidan sat as well, at the other end of the table. “So how did you get into the dream field, as it were?” Fletcher set the coffee spoon aside, and took a sip. “I was doing graduate work at Stanford, for a rather brilliant fellow in the field as a graduate assistant. It didn’t pay much, but it covered beer on Fridays.” He grinned. “Anyway, I was fascinated by the research involving lucid dreamers communicating with the waking world during sleep. It was pretty primitive stuff by today’s standards. But all brand new. Orwellian, almost.” Kent leaned over the table, fingers laced together. “Lucid dreamers?” Fletcher looked up. “Yes. Lucid dreaming is when you know you’re dreaming, in the dream. You’ve had that experience?” Kent thought for a moment. “I am sure I have, though it must’ve been a long time ago. I don’t think I dream anymore.” Fletcher nodded to Tia. She shrugged. “Me too. I seldom recall my dreams. I must not be one of those people who dreams every night.” “On the contrary,” Fletcher said. “If you have a normal sleep pattern, you probably dream a minimum of five dreams a night. One for each of your passages into and out of deep REM sleep.” “But how come I don’t remember them?” Kent glanced over at Aidan. The leader of the group could get a little impatient when they got too far off track. But Aidan gave a nod. Apparently, boss thought this was necessary background. “The dreams are shorter in early sleep, because the REM period is shorter. The longer you sleep, the longer the REM time. And each time you dream, it tends to sort of…overwrite the previous dream.” Kent looked perplexed. “So to be a lucid dreamer, do I have to remember my dreams?” Fletcher chuckled. “Technically, I guess not, although if you don’t remember, you’ll have no idea that you had a lucid dream.” “So maybe I have lucid dreams all the time, and just don’t know it,” said Kent. “Not much value in that,” Aidan replied. “Well, not to be a bucket of cold water, but what’s the big deal about knowing you’re dreaming?” Kent asked. “Think of what goes on in your dreams. Not that it’s anybody’s business, of course – but I dare say you may find yourself doing things that aren’t physically, or socially, possible in the real world. Flying, for example. Or sitting naked in a classroom.” Fletcher was on a roll. Tia shifted, discomfited, but determined not to react. “The point is not lucid dreaming, as an end. But it’s the gateway-” Aidan looked at Fletcher for concurrence. “When you know you’re dreaming, you can begin to exert your will in the dream. You can take over the controls, as it were.” Fletcher flashed a generous grin, as if he’d just thrown open the gates of the Magic Kingdom for a private party. “And you think people will pay for that?” It was Kent who spoke, but his question was honest, not sartorial. It was Fletcher’s turn to shrug. He turned to Aidan. “Have you ever had the fantasy of the lost day?” Aidan looked at the puzzled faces around him. “Waking up one morning to a day all your own, where you can do absolutely anything you dare to, and the next day no one but you remembers it? The lost day!” he repeated, theatrically. His colleagues looked at each other. Even Fletcher seemed a little confused about the shift in topic. “Tia. Kent.” Aidan looked at each in turn. “Tell me you’ve never had that fantasy.” Tia had a faraway look. “Well, of course, everybody imagines breaking the rules, every once in a while. A day would probably do it for me.” “What would you do, Tia dear? At least the things you can tell us about? You get up, you ….what? Kent smiled at Tia, his hand sweeping, palm up, over the table top, as if he were laying out an imaginary trove of choices. She mused, considering the question. “Well, first, I would take a hammer and wake up my noisy neighbor with a few slams to his front door. And of course, I would walk down to the lobby in my bikini to pick up my mail.” “Why not go nude?” Fletcher asked, and then colored. They really had just met, after all. “Well, if I was positive that no one would have any recollection the next day…but I wouldn’t be able to do anything that I could get arrested for, right? I wouldn’t want to spend my one lost day in lockup.” “Good point,” said Fletcher. “But you’re talking apples and oranges. They are really two different…experiences, if you will.” Aidan turned his chair so the back faced the table, straddled it, and sat back down. “Say more, Fletcher.” Fletcher took a breath, and patted his shirt. He glanced down, and gave a sigh. “I recently quit smoking again. It is the habit part of it, not the biochemical stuff, which is the hardest. The patch only eases the physical craving- sorry. Where was I? “Oh, yes.” Recalling his point, he started again. “Aidan, the fantasy you describe, the ‘lost day,’ is very common. Research variously places it in the top five, along with being invisible, and time travel.” He paused. “What we are talking about is way beyond the lost day. For that matter, it could include elements of the other classic fantasies. Flight, invisibility, traveling across time.” Aidan could see the lights coming on around the table. Fletcher smiled. “In dream control, the only limit is one’s imagination. It is, after all, only a dream. But consider the possibilities.” “Yeah,” Kent paused. “I enjoy my life just as it is, most of the time. But it wouldn’t touch the kick of dream control. Are we concocting the 21st Century’s new designer drug? Will we precipitate the next wave of twelve step support groups? Dreamers Anonymous?” “That’s an issue for another day,” Aidan said, eager to move the discussion along. “Fletcher and some of his colleagues have been experimenting with a synthetic that can, in concert with some external props, take a person straight to dream control.” Fletcher cut in. “It’s not successful all the time, with all people. Not even close. It shows promise, but it’s too early to say more than that.” Aidan continued. “That’s where we come in. We have access to a lot of capital, and Kent is working on an industrial-strength version of what’s already been discovered. Something that will keep the Feds happy, and won’t end up on a banned substances list.” He turned to Kent. “I’ve taken some of the brew that Fletcher sent over,” Kent said, “and combined it with hormones that are pretty stable in suspension over a matter of hours. It’s highly experimental, and the FDA would have kittens! But what’s a dream cocktail among friends?” “You haven’t actually done human experiments with these synthetics yet, have you?” Fletcher blanched, his eyes wide. Kent slowly shook his head. “No, we haven’t. Not yet. But we are hard up against it at this point. Animal tests are out. No brain wave scan known to science will tell us if the rat knows he’s dreaming.” “So what happens next?” Michael broke in. “Are we looking for university assistance? A private research outfit? That could be a real can of worms, if the idea’s to keep a lid on this.” “No way. Absolutely no goddamn way. This group is as big as we get for now. The four of us.” Aidan swung his head, rather than shook it. It was NO in 36 point font and bold. “Aidan, even the VidTours campaign team wasn’t this small.” Kent said. Aidan slammed his fist on the table, his eyes blazing. Everyone jumped an inch, and the silence fell over the group like ash from a cartoon explosion. Aidan was visibly working to control his emotions. After a moment, he spoke, his gaze softening. “Kent, I almost said, ‘Don’t ever bring that sorry chapter of my life up again,’ but the truth is I’m glad you do. I know it cost you, too. Much more than money.” He turned to Fletcher. “I had a partner once, who…Sorry, just some ancient history. But it’s the reason we’re a little obsessive about the secrecy, and about moving quickly on this.” “You’re familiar with Adventures Unlimited?” Kent asked Fletcher. Fletcher nodded. Who hadn’t heard of the hugely popular virtual travel retailer? It was at least as groundbreaking as Blockbuster Video had been in the late 20th century. And as profitable. Joel McAllister had made Adventures Unlimited hugely successful, and vice versa. “Well, before there was an Adventures Unlimited,” Kent said, “there was VidTours. Ever heard of it?” Fletcher thought for a second. “I’m afraid I haven’t.” “Don’t feel bad,” Tia said. “You may be the only one in this room who hasn’t, but believe me, no one else in the known world has.” “We made some mistakes then that we’re going to avoid this time around. Nobody, but nobody,” Aidan slammed his open hand, less forcefully this time, on the table top, “gets out in front of us on this one. Joel McAllister taught me well. He nearly destroyed me in the process. I’ve taken his lessons to heart. Trust me.” Fletcher looked grim. “Now to the real reason I’m here?” Aidan spoke. “Don’t worry. We don’t want to put you under.” Fletcher grinned, abashed at his own unease. Aidan cut short his sense of relief. “I’m going to take a dose.” Aidan said. “In just a few minutes. I wanted you here, because I’m going to try to communicate out, if I take control of the dream.” Fletcher’s eyes narrowed. “You obviously know a lot about me, and about my work. I don’t have to tell you that communicating with the outside while you’re dreaming is extremely rare.” He looked over at Kent. “But what assurance do you have that this boosted synthetic won’t have some drastic side effect? I’m not the pharmaceutical expert.” “I am,” Kent said dryly. “I believe the risk is minimal – to me.” He smiled at Aidan. “Of course, it may leave Aidan communing with the Sandman until who knows when. I’m kidding,” he exclaimed, with mock drama, at his boss’s glare. “Aidan will be closely monitored. We’ll know from his wave patterns where he is in the sleep cycle.” Tia drew her raised hand in front of her, dipping and rising, like a wave cresting and falling. “It would be impressive if we could pick up cues from him inside his dream. But that is a little out of my league.” Fletcher sighed, looking from one to the other around the table. “To borrow a snowboarder’s expression, this is like catching serious air on the learning curve.” Aidan studied Fletcher for a moment, his hands still clasped loosely, resting on the back of his chair. “You don’t fool me for a second, Fletcher. With all due respect, I think you are as curious as we are.” The leader of the project rose from his chair, and swept a hand toward the living area. “Out that way is the door. You are under no obligation- except of course with respect to the nondisclosures you signed with our attorney.” He stepped to the counter dividing the kitchen from the dining space, and leaned against it. “Or, there is always door number two. If you decide to stay, we have a lab of sorts set up in the basement. It’s primitive, but sufficient for our needs.” Aidan’s face relaxed and he spread his arms. “Come on, Fletcher. You know a little about me too. I put in my time dream journaling. I know my dream signs. I am not a neophyte. I have a lucid dream on average just over once a night.” Fletcher’s eyes mirrored incredulity. “One a night is a bit of a stretch, don’t you think? That’s less than five percent of practitioners.” “Join us, and I’ll try to arrange one for you in the next hour or so. I woke up about an hour ago, after five hours down, anticipating this little experiment. And yes, once a night or better is my average.” “Once a night or better,” mused Kent. “You know,” he said with a wicked grin, “if you were talking about something besides dreaming, that would be something that’d fly off the shelves!” “You’re determined to try this today?” Fletcher asked. Aidan nodded. “Life’s short. We can do this. And we’re not finishing second this time. In fact, I’ve been up almost 45 minutes already, so I’d like to go under again soon.” “Nap-Induced Lucid Dreaming?” Fletcher asked, eyebrows raised. Aidan smiled, nodding. He sat back down, across the table from Fletcher. “We can do this alone. But Fletcher, we could sure use you for this stage. What do you say? You didn’t have any big afternoon plans, did you?” “Oh, what the hell. What’s the dosage level?” Fletcher lifted a hand as Kent opened his mouth. “Never mind, don’t tell me. And don’t tell me what you have in this witch’s brew, either.” Just tell me…what you want me to do.” Kent said, “Don’t think controlled substances. Think mugwort, datura, B-vitamin derivatives, and tryptophan.” Fletcher nodded. The drugs were organic, not toxic. With one addition, they were the ones his team had targeted as having the most promise. The group rose and moved across Aidan’s wide, brightly lit kitchen, to a small white door in the hall. Aidan opened the door and switched on a light. He turned, his neck arched, his eyes rolling, his hands rubbing together. He spoke with his mouth twisted, in imitation of the crazed Doctor Frankenstein. “Velkum to my laboooratory,” he said, fiendishly. As Kent stepped past him, he said, “Is everything ready? Tell me everything’s ready.” “Everything’s ready! Would you relax? By my estimate, this has a good forty percent chance of leaving you alive!” He punched Aidan on the arm, and then stepped down the stairs. At the foot of the stairs, Fletcher stopped to gaze around the low-ceilinged room. Aidan grinned. “You were expecting an operating bed, complete with steel skull cover, wired to my rooftop lightning rod?” Despite his unease, Fletcher smiled. “Something like that.” He looked around the sparsely furnished den-like space. “Where do you…” “Sleep?” Aidan raised his eyebrows. “In the lounge chair there. For reasons I don’t yet understand, I connect more quickly to my dreamstate when I’m sleeping sitting up. It’s not comfortable. I wouldn’t choose to sleep that way if I just wanted to rest. Any thoughts?” “That’s a new one on me,” Fletcher said. “Maybe the mild discomfort prevents you from sinking below a certain REM threshold.” The professor shrugged. “There’s still a lot we don’t know.” He turned to Kent. “So I guess this is your show now?” Kent laid a hard black case on the stand next to the lounger. It was about the size of a hard back book. He clicked open the case, and withdrew a syringe and a clear glass vial. Fletcher gasped. “You’re going to sell this as an injection?” “Relax,” said Aidan. “The product will be orally ingested. Of that much we’re certain. Right, Tia?” He shot her a glance, brow raised. “Tell me that’s right.” “That’s what we’re working to, yes,” she replied, as Kent flicked the filled syringe with a finger. Turning to Fletcher, Tia said, “He was down for five hours, up about one, and he should go right into deep REM. This,” she gestured to the syringe, “will amplify the brain wave activity, so we know when to ping him.” “Won’t you know you’re dreaming?” Fletcher asked Aidan. “I do less than half the time, but my response to the auditory and visual stimuli is pretty reliable. I get conscious, but don’t usually wake up.” Fletcher nodded, turning his attention to the room itself. “I don’t see any blackboards, or water vats, or bells. What kind of protocol will you use for reaching through from your dreamstate?” Aidan smiled. “I think you’ll like this. It’s based on the work of Sloan and Carothers at Yale.” Aidan stepped to a small desk Fletcher hadn’t noticed. An object was draped under a dark cloth. With a flourish, Aidan swept the cloth away. It took a moment for Fletcher to register what he was seeing. He had expected some sort of optical and/or binaural device, but he was looking at an ordinary flat screen desktop computer, complete with keyboard. The monitor was on, but the screen was just flickering, like an old black-and-white television. “Well, that should advance the cause right into the 20th century,” he murmured. “This is the test device,” Aidan said. Fletcher dug his hands deeper in his pockets. “Test device? And what exactly are you testing?” “Look closely at the screen. Let me slow it down for you.” Aidan stepped to the desk, and tapped several keys. “Slow it down? Slow wha-” Fletcher stared in wonder at the screen. As the flickering slowed, he could see that what had looked like snow was really text racing from the bottom to the top of the screen. Some kind of program was scrolling madly through a file full of words. “That’s at about 25,000 words per minute. A thousand pages of…but that would be cheating. I set it to randomly choose one of a dozen books on CD that I haven’t read yet.” Aidan tapped a couple keys again. The screen looked like it had when Fletcher had first seen it. “Still confused?” As Fletcher nodded, Aidan grinned, rolling one shirt sleeve high above his elbow. “We need to get this show on the road. But I needed someone with your expertise to authenticate this crude experiment.” “I understand the part about slowing time down. That’s no longer theory. There’ve been studies that appear to validate dreaming for weeks, in the space of several hours. But…” Fletcher shrugged toward the monitor. “In dreams, I am not bound by physical, or for that matter temporal, constraints.” Aidan expelled a small sigh as Kent sank the syringe needle into his upper arm. “If I decide to turn around and step into this room from wherever I happen to be, that’s child’s play. Yes?” In theory, Aidan was quite right. “So you are going to exit the body during the dream, and step over in this vicinity,” Fletcher circumscribed a line around himself, glancing over to check his view of the monitor. He glanced over at Aidan, who nodded. “You’ll read this book-” “Probably several times. Each reading should only take about three of your minutes at 50,000 words per minute. Sorry, I interrupted you.” Aidan dropped his eyes, and gave a slight shrug, rolling his sleeve down and buttoning the cuff. Fletcher sighed, trying to get his head around this information. “So you will read this book, awaken later, and tell me about it?” Aidan gave a quick nod. “That about sums it. What do you think?” Fletcher scratched at his chin. “Understand I am not a business tycoon. I leave that to people who have that gift.” He nodded towards Tia. “But this is shaping up to be a hell of a product demonstration.” Aidan stepped over to the lounger, and slipped off his loafers, leaving them side by side on the floor. “It could be a lot more entertaining than a baseball game. And if we can sell it as cheap…” He shrugged, sitting down in the lounger and leaning back. “Been to a game lately?” Fletcher chuckled. “But I get your drift.” “We’ll start a strobe flash, when the REMs tell us he’s at stage four,” Kent said to Fletcher. Who’s running the bells and whistles?” asked Fletcher. “All the non-vitals monitoring is my job. We dress-rehearsed this last week, just in case,” said Tia. Fletcher thought of something that had come up earlier. “You mentioned auditory stimuli. What are we using to retrieve you from the dreamstate?” “It’s a number. I think it must have been my first log-in pass code. 324105. When I hear that sequence, I know it’s time to pinch myself.” “Time to dim the lights,” said Tia. “We’ll try to quiet the party for the next few minutes. See you on the other side.” Aidan nodded, and gave a thumbs-up. “Let’s meet here after the show,” he said with a pleasant grin. Tia stepped to the wall switches, and dimmed the lights. By silent agreement, the other three moved to a group of chairs on the other side of the room. They sat quietly. Kent would glance at his watch now and then. After a few minutes, Kent rose, and stepped to a bank of switches. He flicked one, and soft music- something from Carmen- flowed out on hidden speakers. Responding to Fletcher’s puzzled look, Kent gave a sheepish grin. “That’s for me. It doesn’t bother Sleeping Beauty.” He inclined his head toward Aidan’s still form. Sure enough, Aidan appeared to be slumbering peacefully. Kent nodded at Tia, and flipped a second switch. A bundle of tiny white Christmas lights dangled from the ceiling by a single wire. The lights were bunched into a small ball, about two feet above Aidan’s face. Fletcher hadn’t noticed them until now. As he watched, they blinked, all at once, every few seconds. He caught Tia’s eye. “Flasher plug?” he asked. She nodded, her arms loosely folded over her chest. Kent flipped a third switch, and a clamp light attached to the side of the computer desk came on. It illuminated the desk top and the chair in front of it. “We weren’t sure about the chair,” Tia said. “If it moves on its own, I think I might faint dead away.” Fletcher shook his head in wonder. “He can read 50,000 words a minute, but he can’t read in the dark?” “We had to make sure he can find the monitor,” Kent said. He sounded a little irritated. “This isn’t an exact science.”
Aidan crawled through a large pipe, like one of the tubes on a children’s playground. He came to an opening, and looked down into a pool of clear water below the lip of the pipe. He could see to the bottom of the pool. It appeared to be hundreds of feet deep. He squatted in the mouth of the tube, his fingers clinging loosely to either side. Aidan craned his head to look over the top of the tube, and a light flashed in his eyes. “I am dreaming,” he said aloud. “When I turn back into the tube, there will be a door.” He swiveled around as gracefully as he could manage, and grasped the handle of a door. “This door opens into a room with a computer monitor.” Aidan realized he was standing aright. He turned the knob and opened the door. Stepping out into the room, he spotted a monitor several feet ahead of him. Aidan willed himself to relax, focusing on his breathing. He leaned down to the monitor as the lines scrolled up the surface of the screen. He let the lines fly by like so many rows of corn, not trying to focus on any of them. A break appeared in the rows, and several flashes of light. Aidan gazed at the screen, inviting the words to form. He said aloud, “Time is slowing down.” He bent closer to read:
---family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister - Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never---
Aidan read, on and on. He could not guess what the book was, but soon he was captivated. He had been reading for what seemed like hours when he heard a sound above him. It came from an intercom, or an overhead speaker. He continued to read, but the noise from above grew more distracting. Aidan could not make out all of the words. Three something four something oh five. Aidan tried to close out the sound of the numbers, but the words on the monitor began to speed up until they were lines. Soon the screen was a flickering white snowy pattern. Three two four one oh five? Now it sounded like a question. A male voice. The voice sounded familiar. The monitor changed again. Now it was an ancient microfiche machine, and the screen was scrolling newspaper text from bottom to top. The front page masthead said Richmond Times. The banner headline read:
Former Partner Convicted in Slaying of Adventures Unlimited Founder
“Three two four one oh five. Rise and-” Aidan’s eyes blinked open. “-shine, sleeping beauty. Formation in ten.” The guard continued down the aisle, drawing his nightstick across the vertical bars as he rousted the inmates. Aidan closed his eyes again, lightly, and stared at the backs of his lids as he performed a quick recall. He no longer had to journal any of the dream memories. In his mind he moved back, to the screen, to the sequence in the tunnel, out into the basement with the dream team, and finally up the stairs to his dining room at home. Or what used to be home. After a few moments, he sat up on the edge of the bunk and swiveled his feet to the floor. He breathed deep. This place would always smell like cigarettes, he thought, even though they’d been banned on the tiers for a long time. He reflected on the dream. It felt tight, but again he had miscalculated the passage of time. Tonight, he thought, I need to tighten it up. I need to leave enough time to get back out, and discuss the book with my new friend Fletcher. Pip. Who’s Pip? I wonder what the name of that book is, anyway. As he rose to go stand at the door, he ran a hand through his thinning hair. Oh, well. He had plenty of time to work on it.
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