## Castle in The Sky Dreams are interesting. I keep seeing the same place. I'm not sure where it is. I picture it like a castle up on a hill. There's a large body of water on one side, and a smaller one on the other. It's always late afternoon. Not yet 5:00; golden hour. The sun never moves, unless it's not there. The first time I remember an island on Lake Muskoka. Mirror fire twilight. I don't remember when I had that dream. I think I was still in Waterloo at the time. It was a small island, only a few granite rocks and some puddles. A glass cabin. Sometimes also a larger main cabin, wooden. The main cabin appears in other places too. It has a dining area, with china. Amber wooden floorboards. A view over the rocks and water. There are often hummingbirds in the pines. Sometimes the main cabin is on another shoal. The one where we catch fish from. I never expect to find the cabin but sometimes it's there and I remember it. Sometimes, I see it up on a rocky hill over an ocean. The rocky hill is different every time I see it. Sometimes I rent a different room in a house on the hill. But I'm never there. The room is empty and I'm not sure why it's mine. Maybe just a place to come back to. Nobody lives upstairs or downstairs. Sometimes I walk into those apartments. They're furnished like a Wasaga beach rental. The cozy kind of kitsch. A pair of old wingback chairs, sun bleached pink near the drapes. Wooden cabinet with glass panes, behind them crystalware, porcelain angels. A welcoming silver platter on the wall. From inside, looking out the window is Lake Ontario. I have to go back upstairs to exit. Sometimes I find myself on a cobblestone road surrounded by Italian villas, never quite the same place. The sun tells me where I am. I can follow it back down to the fishing shoal. Other times, I come up in an unreal location; an abridged chimera of Toronto. The Gardiner runs up hill, but it's not a highway, it's a trail. I don't understand where it leads. I've gone pretty far before but I always have to turn around at some point. In another direction, more north, there is a ravine of sport complexes and shopping malls. They are tall like skyscrapers, and interconnected. I've gone into them before. Sometimes there are grocery stores, food courts. I often want to buy something but forget to. They're confusing to navigate because they don't appear to have been designed. The walls and ceilings are often at random angles. The doors are in unexpected places, and don't always look like doors. I often have to stoop down because the ceilings slant down into a corners. I have to knock around to find my way in and out of places, like an absurd mini golf course. Nobody seems to mind it. It's as if the spaces were carved out of crystal by mechanical termites. I walked into a movie theatre one time. I don't remember what was playing. I remember something spectral and complex. *INFERENCE*. I think I discovered the theatre last year. Sometime or another, I find an escape hatch or an elevator that takes me to a platform. The platforms are too small and they're usually crowded. A bus or a streetcar comes eventually. But sometimes I get off and it went in a different direction than it moved. I'm not sure if it's an issue with space or time. Last night, my glass cabin was near the foot of the rocky hill, it's taller than before. It occurs to me that the hill looks like a volcano.