I was in Chicago, visiting someone. I stopped in to this really cool camera store, and there were some things that I wanted to buy, but I'd left my bag somewhere else, so I had to go back and get it. I left the store and headed back around the corner. I was lost in my head, thinking about Chicago versus Pittsburgh, how it's the little things like that amazing store that make Chicago so much fun sometimes, but how now I'm starting to have a bunch of really great friends in Pittsburgh.

I was walking and thinking about that, and about my general indecision about moving. As I rounded the corner, I went into some sort of flashback mode, remembering why I had left Chicago in the first place, and reliving that event.

A man tried to mug me - grabbing me in a choke hold with one arm and holding up a knife with the other. We struggled and I yelled and kicked; I was not about to give in. As a matter of fact, I kicked so hard that I kicked the man off of the curb and into the street, where he was hit by a car.

The next thing I remember is being back on that same corner. The same man was there, but in a wheelchair, presumably from being hit by that car. I guess he felt he had something to prove, because he tried to mug me again. Again, we struggled, and again, I shoved him out into the street - I suspect this time I rolled him out into the street - where he was run over by a bus. Dead.

I was not wild about the notion of having killed someone, even in self-defense, and this struggle stayed with me.

Then I remember being in a house. There was a party, and I was being handed a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi. I was injured - I think I had lost one of my legs in one of these struggles and was wearing a prosthetic leg. I was also trying to figure out who tried to kill me, but it wasn't the mugger. Then somehow I saw this nondescript man, and he was painting or injecting a big bunch of cocaine onto the lid of this Pepsi bottle so that I would have a heart attack and die. I even managed to get the syringe after he was done. I tried to convince other people that he was the one who had tried to kill me, but no one would believe me - I think everyone thought I had done it to myself. Plus, a lot of people were mad at me for having killed the mugger ... my friends didn't like me anymore because I had killed someone.

So I left the room with the party and then I think I was in an office (sort of). I went to ask a friend of mine a question and she ignored me - just pretended like I wasn't even standing there. Her hand was sitting on the counter, so I started pounding on it as I asked the question again. Still no response. So I grabbed a large safety pin and started jamming it into her hand as I asked the question yet again. Still no response, at which point I threw up my hands and stormed off.

I walked along the row of cubicles and saw a post card on the ground. It was one of the ones I had sent to He Who Shall Remain Nameless, that he said he never received (in reality, I sent two post cards to khaosinc that never showed up, but that's another story). I'd assumed he was lying because he hated me, just like everyone else, but when I saw the post card lying on the ground, I thought maybe he was telling the truth after all. I picked up the post card and went to this front bedroom, where he was lying in bed, under the covers, in the mostly darkened room. I forget if he had just gotten off of work, or school, or was recovering from an illness, or something, but I remember feeling a prevailing sense that he needed his sleep. I told him I had found the post card and showed it to him. He told me to leave it somewhere, and that I should come back and talk to him later. There was an overwhelming sense of tenderness in this scene, and of quiet. It was a nice little respite from the hatred that I'd felt from everyone else.

But I left and let him sleep. I was immediately summoned to the boss' cubicle, where two or three of my higher ups were going to fire me, I believe because I had killed the mugger. This time I got indignant. I was sick of being made to feel bad for killing this man, especially because when he attacked me the first time I didn't kill him; it was only when he came back the second time. I remember I said something about the fact that both of my parents were cops (they're not) and that they had taught me to defend myself, a fact that perhaps this schmuck didn't bank on. What's more, I added, if I had to kill again, I would.

That's all I remember.