The Fourth Factor

My old friend Saimi and I are sitting at a table by the city’s inner wall, having coffee. They are thick walls, built with greyish stone, and through a window in the wall—a rough hole with a metal grid across it—we can see something a little troubling taking place: a small group of oni is building a campfire there, in the courtyard area between this wall and the outer one. They’re larger than humans, with colorful skin and wearing rough clothing, some of it made from animal skins. It’s odd, I think to myself. It’s been ages since I’ve read, watched or played anything with oni in it. The ones I can recall looked different. And yet, these guys strike me as familiar—familiar as individuals, even. I can’t account for it.

Anyway, Saimi and I have business to take care of. I have been investigating a series of mysterious events that Saimi has been involved with in some way—something from a dream from earlier in the night that I can no longer remember— and since our last meeting, my research has turned up something quite interesting. We have two small pages of text with us that appeared when the events took place and that we suspect may be connected to them somehow—both the same text, but one copy in English and one in Korean. They seem to concern some kind of game.

The oni—whom we’ve been keeping a watchful eye on this whole time—are now entering through the gate, which isn't far from where we're sitting, and roaming the city square. Presumably, they're looking for someone to eat. Should we move? We decide not to. They'll probably be satisfied with only one person, and there’s only a small chance it’ll be one of us. We continue talking. But suddenly, I feel myself grabbed from behind and carried backwards. My espresso cup falls to the ground and rolls away. I call out something to Saimi as I struggle to get free—but then the dream shifts around us. I’m not sure now whether it was something I did intentionally or something that just happened, but at any rate, I seem to be better prepared for it than the oni are. While they’re trying to figure out what just happened, I break loose and run for it.

Or rather, my character on the screen does, since I’m now experiencing this as a video game. I get a few screens away, at which point I know I’m safe. From there, I explore the town where I now am for a little while, going into houses and talking to the people there—and then I seem to be on my computer, checking my email. As I watch, new emails are arriving in my inbox every few seconds, which is unusual. Something big must be happening.

And then I wake up.

(22.1.17)

In the dream, I seem to have traveled to some sort of large family gathering at an unfamiliar location. It is the last day before we go our separate ways, and so I speak with my aunt and uncle, arranging a time to meet up tomorrow morning, since we’ll be returning together. It’s better to get the planning out of the way now rather than try to do it at the party tonight, I explain.

Later on, I’ve gone somewhere nearby but higher up, by a park on a hill. In the middle of a well-kept green area is a large statue of the Brothers Grimm. There is another green hill off to one side with a row of tiny houses around the base, and stuck into the hillside is a large stone plaque, round with a wavy outline. Across the top, a few names are engraved, and below, a body of text in a smaller size.

There’s a police officer nearby, and I get into a conversation with him. The part of it I can still recall went like this:

“You could live in that house.”

It is the house nearest to us that he’s talking about, a sort of cabin-like structure. The door is wide open, so I can see that it is vacant. I can also see that it is ridiculously tiny, which would probably explain why. I tell him I can’t live possibly there: there isn’t even enough room to lie down inside.

“You could sleep in the park,” he says, undeterred. “And keep food in the house.”

This is a bit odd coming from someone whose job, as I understand it, involves keeping people from sleeping in parks. I must have said something expressing my doubt as to whether that was allowed because he then—in the manner of someone who’s lived in a town all his life and apparently knows everything significant that’s happened there since the dawn of civilization—asks me if I’ve heard of a certain person—a Greek name, but I can’t recall it any longer. I thought I did—a young man, a Greek general from the early 20th century—but he replied that it was actually someone else who was associated with him somehow.

This man, explained the officer, had spent a night sleeping on the statue itself. I look over and see that Wilhelm, on the right, is holding a scroll that looks like it would make a natural perch for the venturesome and bored. And not only did this man not get in trouble for it—the policeman is very emphatic about this—they put his name on the plaque along with the other famous people who had been there to visit the site. The point being, I guess, that nobody would hold it against me, either.

And after that, I was down in the area with my family again until I woke up around four in the morning.

(13.1.18)