M. T. Anderson by Feed Page B

oneiric culture, the culture of dreams.
    And we are the nation of dreams. We are seers. We are wizards. We speak in visions. Our letters are like flocks of doves, released from under our hats. We have only to stretch out our hand and desire, and what we wish for settles like a kerchief in our palm. We are a race of sorcerers, enchanters. We are Atlantis. We are the wizard-isle of Mu.
    What we wish for, is ours.
    It is the age of oneiric culture. And we, America, we are the nation of dreams.

Later that night, I had nightmares.
    Someone was poking my head with a broom handle. They tried to put it like in my ear. They said, “Whispering makes a narrow place narrower.”
    Then came all these pictures, and I was seeing all over the world, and there were explanations, but I was still asleep, and I couldn’t figure them out. I saw khakis that were really cheap, only $150, but I didn’t like the stitching, and then I saw them torn and there was blood on them. It was a riot on a street, and people were screaming in some other language, they were in khakis or jeans and T-shirts, and they were throwing stones and bottles, and the police were moving forward on horses, and a man in the crowd waved a gun, and then the firing started. They were in front of factories, and clouds of gas drifted through them and the American flags they were burning started to spark big, and the gas got darker and darker, and the people sped up, like a joke, grabbing at their necks and waving and sitting and slapping the ground. They fell down. I saw a sign with a picture of a head with a little devil sitting in the brain, inside the skull, with these like energy bolts coming out of his mouth.
    I saw fields and fields of black, it was this disgusting black shit, spread for miles. I saw walls of concrete fall from the sky and crush little wood houses. I saw a furry animal trying to stand up on its legs but the back ones were broken or not working, and it dragged itself with the front ones, whimpering, through someplace with gray dust, and needles coming out of the sand. Its jaws were open. I saw long cables going through the sea. I saw girls sewing things, little girls in big halls. I saw people praying over missiles. I smelled the summer in this rocky place, and the summer smelled like electrical burns. I saw a kid looking at me, he was a kid from another culture, where they wear dresses, and there were all of these shadows all over his face, these amazing shadows, and I thought it was a really cool picture, to get all of those weird shadows somehow, but with nothing making them, and finally, I realized that they weren’t shadows, they were bruises, and then the end of a gun, it’s called the butt, it came down and hit him in the face and then all the pictures were over.
    Hey,
Violet said.
Hey. Was that you?
    I was like,
What? What’s the thing? With . . . the . . . ?
    Did I wake you up?
    Okay, could . . . is she . . . ?
    Hey — look lively. Someone was just nosing around my feed, checking out my specs and sending me all these images.
    It was probably a corp. Don’t . . . Oh, unit, I can’t believe you completely jolted me. I was having this weird-ass dreaming.
    I don’t think it was a corp. They didn’t have a tag.
    Don’t you have a shield?
    They got right wham through the shield.
    Oh, unit. Oh, unit. I’m . . . Do you know how asleep I was?
    I called FeedTech Customer Assistance. I’m going to report this. Something’s happening.
    Oh, okay. Shit. Okay. So can I go like back to sleep?
    You sure it wasn’t you?
    Unette — it wasn’t me. I was so asleep, it was like . . . It was like ten asleep factor.
    They can trace who it was, I bet.
    Yeah. Maybe.
    You didn’t see any of this? The images?
    What of?
    There’s someone else here. Can you feel it?
    Who?
    Someone else. They just tapped in, just a second ago.
    A voice said,
Hi, this is Nina from FeedTech Customer Assistance.
    Thank god.
    Are you tired of the same old shoulders? Why not try