The old men, for their part, fell to telling me their dreams. Their dreams were not so bad, but I would have to seriously doctor them up to make them interesting enough to include here. Instead I will tell you one of my own. Because of its narrative elements and the fact that it crossed detective and ghost story genres, it was something of a success when, at my insistence that I have a turn, I told it to the old men. It helped that we were sitting on one or two barely lit benches and that the park around us, with its winding paths and heavy foliage, was lit everywhere with small round lights, so that, as one of the old men said, you never knew whether wolf or lamb or some unpleasant combination of the two was going to step out of it. Actually, I said that. And the response I got was not so positive. Shut up and tell your dream, they said. I cleared my throat and did so.
I am an inspector in an almost silent black-and-white world working to track down a noted member of “the resistance.” Not for the first time, I catch up with him and unload my handgun. The bullets fly out in long thin slivers of shining lead that the wind distorts. I tell my colleagues, when they arrive, that I’m sure I hit him. They shake their heads. This scene repeats itself. One evening everyone is out making a sweep for him in a warehouse across town. On a hunch I go back to his place of work, a book shop where he hasn’t been seen for weeks. And sure enough, he’s there. I see him through the window, puttering around the shop — a tall man in yellow light. I call my colleagues then pull my gun and close in. Just as I am about to enter, however, I register that he keeps repeating the same movements. And then I know. My colleagues arrive and we go in. I touch one of the books. He vanishes. He’s been keeping us busy chasing him, I say. He’s been dead the whole time.
When I finished there was a silence, or a relative one — a couple of the old men suffered from that condition which makes one’s teeth, it is unfortunate, clack together. I am happy to say that I was not one of them. Although I’m not too proud to confess that my lips sometimes make movements I don’t command them to and that my hands, on occasion, shake a little. Also, my skin, from when I was fat, hangs somewhat inharmoniously and is very rough in places, and I am prone to considerable stiffness in the lower back, which makes me, at times, very slow and decrepit seeming indeed. Furthermore, I look old. In and of itself this would not be a bad thing. I actually like the look of the old, and not just the pretty, if slightly watery, eyes. For instance, I am inclined to think that the somewhat overpronounced veins on the backs of my hands are quite beautiful, and that the blunt, crooked aspect of my fingers is not without a certain charm. Sad to say that most don’t share my opinion. And even if they do, even if they call you sir or madam and pay you compliments, they are still usually inclined to think you are, by dint of being old, somewhat bonkers. But my dream. Someone came up with, not bad. Another said, yeah, yeah. Someone else said, you could make a movie out of that. The discussion turned to movies. One old guy brought up a movie where a man goes out west, is given a paper flower, gets shot, and spends the rest of the movie dying. Some of those who had seen it claimed he was dead before the movie started. There was a general murmur of assent. I like cowboys, I said. Well this guy wasn’t a cowboy, he was just some dead guy who got shot. There was a brief argument. Then a silence. Then someone asked me how my investigation was coming along. What investigation? I said. We’ve all heard about it, another said. I looked around. Everyone I could see was nodding. Because of the travel agent? I asked. And the restaurant. I heard it from my wife, she’s one of the old women. How do they know about it? Oh, they all know about it. Well, do any of you have any tips? Yeah, don’t speculate. How am I supposed to do that? I don’t know. Great, thanks, what else? Consider the evidence. What evidence? I mean the clues. I’ve hardly got any. Isn’t your three weeks about up? They were. In fact, the next night I stood waiting by the garden’s southwest gates.