During the ice storm Loren and I wait over an hour for a table at the rickety thirty-story hotel. When the music is almost over we are led up the stairs to an elevator which opens on a tiny balcony with a table for two which opens on a musty twenty-nine-story atrium. The food never comes, and when it does there is only bacon and potatoes, no eggs. So I strike out into the storm with a mechanized sled that has a weedwacker attachment to smooth down the ice in front. At the coast I ditch it for a sort of waterbound snowboard which, as a favor to the owner, I ride along the frigid coast to the depository. No choice but to walk back.

Young Indian couple in separate cardboard boxes on the highway at night. As I haul them to the median it becomes clear that they are speaking perfect English on their cell phones. They are grateful for the service. Later, I find that dream-reading is a reliable source of typos.

Target practice from the chairlift.

As my family waits in bulkhead seats on an interplanetary flight, I take the next shuttle to their craft, but am stuck in the pod with a man who must be some kind of spy. I ignore him.