I’m in my home, though it’s no a place I’ve seen in my waking life. There are adults and children, two boys, who are my family, though I have never seen them in my waking life.

My high school friend Kathy comes over, I can’t determine if it is a planned visit or not. She has travelled to be here, and needs somewhere to sleep. There is nowhere in the home to put up a guest, but I tell her I have an apartment not far away.

We set out to the apartment, we walk there along a trail that I do remember from my childhood home. The trail follows the shoreline of a lake, and is slightly overgrown, but it is very familiar.

Soon we notice that the trail has turned into the interior of a building. The building has a surreal feeling to it, as though we are walking down a large hallway, with rooms on either side of us. There are no doors or walls on the rooms, and as we pass, the occupants look up from their activities to observe us. Some seem to expect our presence, some are indifferent, and some alarmed or even annoyed. We walk past bedrooms, dining rooms, and living rooms. I feel increasingly like we are intruding, and begin to look for a way out. I have not been able to locate my apartment, nothing looks familiar to me, a realization which alarms me. In time I notice that each room has a door on the far wall that looks like it leads to the outside.

Positioned in front of each door is a black device with brass trim that looks very similar to the coin operated binoculars you might find at a scenic viewpoint. Some of them are face out through the doors, others are looking inward and seem to be tracking us as we move along through the building.

I ask what they are, someone tells me they are Watchers, and we are not to look at them.

In the next moment, we are at the docks, similar as to what is portrayed in the movies about the time when the Irish immigrants arrived in New York; busy, dirty, confused, with Watchers positioned in various locations. We walk past a young man who gets shoved into a Watcher, and in a flash he is lifted up onto a stump that has appeared from nowhere, he has a burlap back with a strange, eerie face lightly printed on it, and a noose around his neck.

I wake up.