I need to talk about this dream before I forget. I dreamed I was a young boy helping out in a lab and they were creating big boards full of computer chips that fit inside people's chests — sort of slotted instead of hearts. Far away above us, aliens starships were circling the earth, waiting to land and conquer us.

Our city is besieged. Gunmen are running up the steps. There is a big old fashioned computer open on my desk — the kind with many slots. I have to find the right board to fit the right slot. In this dream people don't have names, they have labels: A B C iv and U are the labels I recall.

I say, "I am going to announce that the city is burning. The whole city will send police and fire engines and be busy."

I shoot a fat man who is firing at me as he comes up the steps. He is sprayed with shrapnel but seems unaffected. I see a man in a wheelchair emerge from my right from inside the lab. I cut his chest open and pull out the computer board. Blood everywhere. I slot the board into the computer. "That'll buy time," I say, "until the aliens arrive to save the world."