“The sky was short - it was like a theater.”
- Jockum Nordstrom

Last night I dreamt I was visiting Cheyenne, but all of my friends from my entire life, from my childhood in Kansas to my current life here in Lincoln, were there and they were waiting to see me. I was driving all around, on the telephone with A.M.P. trying to convince him to come and join us. He sounds upset when he tells me that the authorities have just announced on television that people are no longer allowed to wear costumes in their vehicles. He sounds as though he might start crying.

“I wanted to see you,” he says, “it’s Christmas after all.”

I offer to go and pick him up, but he has a woman with him, a younger one, who I don’t know. He wants directions to the place where I am meeting everyone, but the problem is that I can’t give directions. I keep confusing Cheyenne with Highland Park, then Lincoln, then Las Vegas, then Santa Monica, then Chicago. I can’t keep the cities straight in my head. Was there a Drake Ave. in Los Angeles? Or is it in Cheyenne? Did we turn around in Kansas City and blow that tire? I continue to drive down dirt roads, behind buildings, and it slowly starts to dawn on me that K. is not in the car with me. Where is she? How can I go to this gathering without her?

“I have to find K.,” I tell A.M.P.

He tells me it’s too late, that I might as well go to the dance with my junior high girlfriend, who is waiting for me to pick her up; she’s purchased a new dress for the occasion. I pull into her parents’ driveway and she comes out as I remember her looking, gets in the car and shows me that after all these years, she has done nothing but wait for me. I look away. We are not in Cheyenne anymore, we are in Europe, but I’ve only ever been to Paris, so this can only be Paris unless it is a city I have created in my head from all the pictures and movies and stories I've heard of Germany. And then I blink and I am back to driving down Pershing Blvd. in Cheyenne, alone. I scan the streets for K. She has to be out there somewhere. I won’t stop driving until I can find her.