smooth

GRAVEL

33.  I fell asleep sitting upright in my car, just across San Pablo Avenue from Paisan, the fine bar and restaurant over here in Berkeley, and when I woke up, was a little shocked I wasn't in my taxicab back at the airport in San Francisco, the place I most often fall asleep sitting up in my car. I felt puzzled. The part of me that dreams at night is smarter than that. All logic leads me to believe it knows what I'm doing, where I am. It shouldn't be that ... clueless. (Dream) The butler I'd assigned the task of mailing a letter for me, out there in the mall, has brought it back to me for some reason. She informs me that the return address is incorrect, which I find amazing. There are two return addresses on the left side of the envelope, more than sufficient! That doesn't seem to sway her, so I scrawl yet a third return address down the left side, sort of artistically, if you ask me, the letters smearing down along the left margin in an almost illegible scrawl, the way a doctor writes, creating the impression of a spring arising from a granite cliff, then running down the rippled rock face. Now some guy has grabbed hold of the bottle of water I'd secreted inside the letter and is vigorously slamming it down on the countertop, almost as if he's trying to get it to explode. "It really isn't a bomb," I reassure him, "It's sparkling water." (Fin)