Had the strangest dream. It felt both delightful and mysterious. Within this dream mountains of books were being given away. The bookstore was a strange blend of Medieval stone, iron, and wood with clean, ultramodern minimalist architecture. People were hurrying in and out with armloads of books. Some lingered, stood about, sat around, puckering up chins and lips in odd, almost comedic facial expressions while alternately plucking at and caressing pages of paper. Books, books, ¡BOOKS! everywhere here in New York City! Twas a mad, merry frenzy of books as if it was a scene in some weird Neo-Disney Noir movie.
In the midst of it all stood Gretchen. Within this dream we knew each other quite well, apparently. I obviously knew her. She was tall and slender, pale skinned from being indoors amongst so many books for too long. Her thick brown hair hung low to her waist and alternated in the dream to curled up high in a tight bun and pinned atop her head. Gretchen was dressed in a long, brightly colored dress as if she was someone who’d left her Amish family for the wild urban explosion of multicolored fashion right in the center of one of Earth’s Great Modern Cities.
In real life, however, I had no idea who she was. Never heard of any such person. Didn’t know anyone named Gretchen out here where I live in Seattle. I’ve met a rare Gretchen here and there around the world including once along the Appalachian Trail in Hot Springs, North Carolina, at Elmer’s Inn, but, hey, that was back in the Spring of 1991. Gretchen is a mystery.
Kids ran everywhere. In and out between and among adult legs. They laughed and shouted or ran silent as submarines in the keep then they burst forth in more howling, laughing, yelling, and screeching for the sheer joy of feeling rambunctiously alive. Most had at least one or two books tucked under an arm or gripped in a hand or two. Oh, there were so many books, books of all colors, and people, people of all colors, wearing so many different kinds of clothes, clothes of all colors.
Outside the sky was bright and sunny with a few small, cotton-ball clouds. Then I woke up that Wednesday morning in July with a powerful urge to go void my bladder.
William Dudley Bass
Wednesday 22 July 2026
Monday 14 September 2026
Shoreline/Seattle, WA
USA
Earth
Sol
Copyright © 2026 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.