I.

I sent my dreams to a publishing company: short dreams; long dreams;
boring dreams; strange ones; complex Jungian synchronistic dreams in
which I was a number, an irrational number, and the equation of the
universe was balanced; transsexual Freudian dreams, peppered with S&M,
holistic cosmological dreams of universal knowledge. I wrapped them in
a bloodstained sheet and carefully addressed it, printing in bold,
capital letters. The postal clerk was suspicious; I told him it was
surrealist art; explained that my package was simply the literary
manifestation of exposed unconscious mechanisms by which Truth and
Beauty are normally repressed in accordance with generalized social
behavior patterns. The liberation of the unconscious, I continued, is
the first stage in the maximization of human potential, and the shroud
of blood is testament to the shedding of skin. He didn't understand and
sold me too many stamps.  YOU ARE AN AGENT OF SATAN! I screamed just
for the sake of confusion. My vanity is overwhelming.

II.

It was the greatest mistake of my life. Granted, I was but nine years
old at the time, but my naiveté was that of a six-year old: I
hadn't copyrighted my dreams. Soon enough, yeah, that's right, it
happened. The New York Times reported my vision of the end of the
Vietnam War as a real event. Allen Ginsberg wrote about MY friends
going crazy. National Geographic conjured up--I don't know how they did
it--the Yanomami tribe in South America, perfectly duplicating fierce
indians I described in my visionary texts. Quantum physicists started
treating my little quarks as if they were real, and my most vicious
nightmares cropped up left and right as box-office hits. By the time
they invented the supersonic jet, I was furious. My vanity is still
overwhelming.

III.

Convinced that my prophecies could not have been understood by the
paltry intelligence of an editor, I delved into conspiracy theory,
searching for the Great Plan which had exploited my childhood
brilliance. Endless attempts at infiltrating the Scotch Rite Masons at
the 33rd level were futile. They considered me a bad poet and didn't
believe in my dreams or so they said. Two years later, I realized they
were but a small spoke in an infinite wheel. They were linear-minded,
and I was expanding in four dimensions, trembling nervous with the
future in white light hallucinations before my eyes, a paradox in every
color I saw, truth and lie in every word, a whisper of persistence, a
vision of the god machine, my vanity justified.

IV.

Sleep is a vice. I spend my nights pondering the burden of Creation
smeared on my pillow. Angels dance for me at will. My vanity is
unspeakable.