Nathan went home later that day, and I went to work. The image of that intense stare was transfixed in my mind. I tried asking my coworkers about what they thought it meant. They, of course, most of them being trained therapists had all sorts of theories as to what the dream could mean. I tried to think about how it made me feel, which was the Gestalt way to look at dreams, and it was really strange, it was a feeling that was good but mixed with fear, maybe almost like a drug high when you are thinking that maybe you took too much man, too much, but then thinking buy the ticket, take the ride.
I wondered more about who that man was, he looked so much like Avi, but Here and There had told me that it wasn’t him. I decided it would probably be a good idea to meet with Avi and see if I noticed anything or he could tell me anything. I thought I might as well tell him about the whole thing. I asked Nathan if he had ever mentioned anything to Avi and he said no, he hadn’t, but he was very curious to see what he would say.
“Do you mind that I filled the tank?” Avi asked, referring of course to the big yellow 15-pound nitrous oxide tank. It was one of his favorite pastimes to fill that tank. Well actually, it was one of his favorite pastimes to DRAIN the tank after filling it. Not that I blamed him, because I took him up on the offer right away.
“But listen to me though,” I said, “I need to tell you something really important. So, maybe listen first and hit the tank later.”
“No problem,” he said, “Is it something bad?”
“No, no, not at all,” I said, and in that moment I realized that none of it was bad, so therefore it must be all good, but it was not necessarily the cheery sort of good, more of a serious sort of good.
“Did I do something bad?” he asked again in the same vein.
“No,” I said. “You always think that.” And indeed he did. His mind was a lot like mine, always going to the worst case scenario.
I headed over to his house, listening to European drum-n-bass in the car. I was trying to think of how to best tell him everything. Avi was somewhat of a skeptic. I wondered what he would think. I didn’t think he’d think I was crazy, dismiss it like Chris Lopez would.
I knocked on his door and he opened it, wearing a dark blue T-shirt and warm-up pants. One of his standard outfits. I liked that blue shirt. It was a pretty color, one of my most favorite shirts that he owned actually. I had told him this.
“You look very nice,” he said.
“Oh thank you,” I said, smiling back. “That’s what I was thinking. I mean, about you.”
“You lost a lot of weight,” he said.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “I did.”
I studied his face and he was definitely thinking something I had never seen on his face before. It was actually, I realized with not a small amount of jolt, the same look that hooded man with the black hair had when he met me, almost like he didn't recognize me. It was so much like that man's face that I wondered if he had forgotten who I was for a second.
“How much weight did you lose?”
“I don’t know,” I said. But I knew exactly how much. I had lost 55 pounds and counting.
“You look real different,” he said. “Real good.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“The months had been very good to you,” he said. “Seriously. You look really nice.”
“Well, thank you,” I said. I didn’t want to think too much about this line of thought because it was distracting. "If you don't mind, I really don't want to think about how much weight I lost and how fat i was, okay? Why don't we just pretend I was always slim like I am now and then we can not talk about my body anymore."
"Okay," he said, looking apologetic. "Don't get mad, it's not a bad thing, it's just---" he trailed off, and I glared at him. "Well, anyway," he said. "I am appreciative of the way you look. You look good."
"Well good," I said. "Let us discuss the matter at hand." I sat down on the couch and put my feet up on the wall.
“Let’s,” he repeated with a smile and sat down beside me.
“All right,” I started, “Now what I am about to tell you is really weird. So just try to listen with an open mind.”
“Okay,” he agreed. “I’m sorry though, and you’ll have to forgive me, but the last time I saw you, you looked very different than you do today. It’s… a little distracting.”
"I am sure I am not the first pretty girl who sat on your couch, so try to focus."
"Okay." He gave me that strange look again, like he had just met me. I decided not to address it anymore and just tell the story.
So I told him everything that had happened, starting with the strange email, the trip to the underground cave, the tent out in the desert, and ending with that dream.
“So this dude in the desert looked like me?”
“He looked exactly like you,” I said. “Except his hair was long and black. Everything else was the same.”
“I once did have long, black hair,” he said.
Hmmm, I thought. Interesting. “Did you ever own a purple, hooded robe?”
“No,” he smiled.
“Does any of this sound familiar? Have you seen or heard any of these things I’m telling you about?”
He shook his head. “No, but…” he paused. “I guess I’m not surprised.”
“Well what do you make of it? Especially that hooded dude, and that look he gave me in the dream. I can’t get that out of my head.”
“Hmmmm,” Avi was thoughtful. “He was in the desert.”
“Yes.”
“And then he was in your dream.”
“Yes.”
“But he wasn’t me.”
“Right.”
“And he showed you a picture of a crying fat man.”
“Yeah.”
“And you think it might be Josh.”
“Yeah.”
“Did I say it was Josh? Or the dude that looked like me, did he say it was Josh?”
“No.”
“And in the dream I looked at you and you can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Right. He looked at me. He's not you."
“Hmmmmm,” Avi looked thoughtful. “Well, it seems like it has something to do with The Don.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’d thought of that.”
“And you know he wanted me, right?”
“Yep.”
“You never met him?”
“No.”
“Did you think I was cute in the desert with the hood?”
I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Um, yeah. I did. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing, I just want to make sure my parallel selves are desirable to beautiful women.”
“Okay,” I said. How stupid.
“Did you ever read Diary of a Drug Fiend? By Aleistair Crowley?”
“Yes, and I hated it. I’m really mostly interested in what you think of that hooded man. Who is he?”
“I don’t know,” Avi said. “I’d like to meet him.”
“You don’t think you've ever met him."
“Mmm, I don’t think so. At least not---well, no. But maybe we’re connected somehow. I mean, if he did look like me, I mean really exactly like me. Did he sound like me?”
“Yes. His voice was the same as yours.”
“Hmmmm. Wow. Well, I think you should meditate on it and ask for more to be revealed to you and you should keep your mind and body in real good working order so you’re ready. And I think you should wholeheartedly pursue your will. And then you’ll be good to go.”
“My will,” I said. “That’s Crowley, right?”
“Yes, among others. Many others."
“And if you think of anything new, you tell me.”
“Of course,” he said. “I probably will too, you just laid a lot on me, I don’t think it’s even made it through the first layer of my processing.”
“Okay,” I said, “Fair enough. So, let’s hit the tank.”
“It’s in my room,” he said. “Mark and Sean might be having people over, so I thought we should go and do it in there.” Those were his roommates.
I got up and he followed me.
“Your ass looks nice,” he said.
“I know it does,” I said.

The tank was sitting in the middle of his room.
“This looks like some sort of crazy subversive root beer float,” I said.
“It is,” he said. “It’s the most illegal root beer float out there. So let's go fishing."
We traded back and forth. He sat opposite me and kept his gaze pretty steadily on me, which was a new thing for him. Before he would just look usually look off to the side or keep his eyes closed, but now he was looking at me most of the time. It felt a little disconcerting but was still essentially welcome, even if did make me feel self-conscious.
I had to use the restroom. My ears were still buzzing with the shimmering crickets sound when I entered the actual commode-bathroom, a small enclosed space separated from the rest of the bathroom area. The buzzing sound of the fan mingled with the shimmering crickets sound and I was mesmerized by it for God knew how long. What is so great about drugs and bathrooms? I thought. They go together like peanut butter and jelly.
“You know what," he said, when I returned, his lips blue. Now his shirt was off. So smooth. What a subtle move. "You could always get what a lot of girls couldn’t,” he said. "Like, I mean, mentally. I never really appreciated it as much as I do now.”
“I suppose it takes the right kind of eyes,” I said. But also what I thought immediately after that was that 55 pounds really makes such a huge difference. People respond to beauty and will listen to someone that they perceive as beautiful more than they will listen to someone whom they don’t. People will listen to a woman with a nice slim sexy body more than they will listen to someone with a dumpy flabby body. I remember once I had a friend named Candace, who was very smart and had very strong and well thought out anarchist beliefs. She had made a speech one time during a political meeting and nobody really responded and then another woman stood up and basically repeated what Candace had said and everyone had hung on her every word and then went up to her after the meeting to talk about how good her ideas were and how they could put them into action. And the only difference between Candace and that other woman was a difference in level of physical attractiveness. “Or the right kind of body,” I added.
“Maybe both,” he said.
And with that, he leaned over across the tank, and he gave me a kiss, a really sweet, lingering, romantic kiss. But it actually wasn't, because I stopped it before it started. I turned my face away. I didn't feel like kissing him all fucked up on nitrous and him only wanting to kiss me now because 55 pounds were gone. I wasn't mad, but I was definitely not attracted.
He immediately bent his head to inhale straight from the nozzle, a dangerous move that can freeze your lungs. And he kept his eyes on my face. While he was inhaling, he continued to look at me, and the hollows of his cheeks stood out and his eyes looked so large and intense, framed by his dark and perfectly groomed eyebrows.
When he was finished he straightened up like he thought he was really cool. I took a hit off my pink balloon, and I thought...
That’s it, that’s the face in my dream…. That’s it. That’s important. But I couldn’t figure out if I liked the face or not. I either loved it or I hated it. Which was it? Which was it?
Everything around me went white and then I was standing alone again the desert, on a hill overlooking a valley. The sun was rising. It was cold.
“Hello?” I shouted, and the vast expanse swallowed my greeting, giving no response. I decided to make myself as comfortable as possible and watch the sun come up. Each day the sun is reborn, according to many ancient traditions. Each new day is truly a new dawn, a new beginning, a new chance to create what one wants. Sunrise is always such a happy time, it is full of hope, possibilities, an endless infinity as the great warmer of the earth makes itself visible. So I sat my ass down on the sand hugged my knees to me and looked at the birth of the new day.
“Katie?” I heard a voice say, but I couldn’t see anyone. “Katie,” the voice repeated. Was it God? I smiled and waved at the sky (as if God lives up there.) Then, I felt a hand shaking my leg and was aware of something supporting me that I was slumped against. Avi’s bed. It was Avi’s hand on my leg.
“How is it?" he said. I waited for what seemed like a long time to answer him.
“How isn't it?” was all I could say.