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Friday, Mar. 29, 2002 - 9:44 a.m.

Dream 3/29/02

It was as if Jersey City was a resort town, and instead of Liberty State Park, it was yards and yards of beach, with palm trees and a clean, inviting ocean instead of New York Bay. About where Casey�s apartment is was where our condo was, and a weird mix of friends and relatives were there vacationing: Myself, Will, Casey, Jess, Mom and Dad, and I think my aunt Barb and cousin Christine. I was at the beach one afternoon with Will -- others may have been there, but they seemed to come and go. As the afternoon begins to grow dark, Will and I decide to walk back to the condo, the darkening skies appearing to indicate rain. Other than the state park replaced by a beach and the scum of Jersey City turned into a seaside paradise, the rest of the area appears the same as in real life -- the depleted New York City skyline lies just across the water. As Will and I are walking back, the day grows darker. Soon my sister and others are following and then it is as dark as night. �What time is it?� I ask Will. He responds in one hilarious way or another, as he usually does, making a bad or tense situation laughable for a moment, something along the lines of �3 o�clock. Nighttime.� But it is 3 p.m. and it�s as dark as night. Now everyone on the beach senses something is happening. I ask if there was supposed to be a total eclipse of the sun we did not know about, but that cannot be the case. Soon, there is a light in the sky, faint at first as if like a star, then growing brighter. Others appear near it, like a cluster of stars, a constellation like the Seven Sisters. Then the Moon appears, but smooth, without the craters that are usually visible from Earth. Only theses stars and the Moon are not white, they are golden, like far-off lamplights on the opposite shore of a lake retreat. Soon the sky is full of lights, and we all stand there on the shore looking up at what soon clearly becomes an extraterrestrial air show. The lights begin moving, darting back and forth across the sky: The �Moon,� smaller �stars� and now blurry, blue-white rounded triangles, a third ship that has joined the team. The shoreline is packed, like for a Fourth of July fireworks show along the riverbank. We watch in fear and amazement and then the skyline begins to change. It starts to shimmer, as if reflected in water, but it still reaches high above us. And then it appears: The two towers of the World Trade Center fade into the picture, becoming as clear as the rest of them. At first we wonder without speaking if they have actually returned, if this cosmic display has regenerated the landmark of Lower Manhattan and, in turn, turned back time, as if the terrorists upset the entire universe and these E.T. visitors were our friends using their intergallactic abilities to help us rebuild in a way we never could. But soon the image fades again and the show ends and we are left with the same feelings of fear and unease that came in the aftermath of September 11th. Our early thoughts, that they came to rebuild are replaced by thoughts we now know to be true for unexplained reasons: It was not Middle Eastern terrorists who attacked America, but otherworldly ones who personified themselves and turned a late summer Tuesday into chaos. Other realizations came to us: The Moon was never the Moon, but all along had been a ship perched high above Earth, constantly watching over us at our actions and tendencies. My cousin turns to us now, pointing to a man not too far away on a bicycle, leaning against a railing along the beach. He is listening to a radio, which had been broadcasting the events not as a report of what happened the way sportscasters call a baseball game, but as a companion -- in the same manner that radio stations sometimes simulcast concerts, or patriotic music to go along with fireworks shows. Then I looked at him and realized that there was only one way he could have found that frequency, that broadcast. �Let�s go,� I tell everyone. �He�s an alien too.� And with that, we are certain now that they live among us, are all around us and have been for years, we just didn�t know it. We are left with the realization, again, that our world will never be the same, that it is not what we have always perceived. It is different, always has been, and this new reality is now the standard. The streets now resemble mild panic, with people moving quickly about for whatever reason. There is a feeling that we cannot escape, that whatever is to happen cannot be avoided. I express interest in hearing what the President�s response will be, and Casey makes a comment about how he will downplay it, keep his remarks lighthearted, and he will bring in a class of students to sit at the front near the podium to help maintain that feeling. Someone else makes a comment about Independence Day, how the fictional president in the movie did a similar thing, and in the world of this dream, it all falls into place, it all fits.

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