I had a dream that I lived in a co-op. A different co-op. This one was a real swank house in a real swank neighborhood, populated by adults. We still had a waterbed, don’t you worry about that.

I didn’t have a job. I mean, I had a job within the house, but not a work-money-job. I didn’t really know why I had money. But whatever, I had plenty of time to lay around.

One day, I was laying on the waterbed looking out the window, and I saw Benjamin Franklin and a horse. At first, I was appalled, and then scared, and then… intrigued. I went outside and opened my mouth to say some strong words to this Benjamin Franklin. What I said was “I… I love you.”

He said “I have something to explain to you. Take my hand.” I took his hand, and a confusing swirl of images came into my mind. I didn’t understand them but they were scary and disturbing. I dropped his hand and went back to the waterbed and cried.

The next day I was laying on the waterbed again and I looked out the window and saw a small child. I went outside and this is what I said to him: “I… I want to adopt you. You should be my child. I want to take care of you.”

He said “I have something to explain to you. Take my hand.” I took his hand. I remembered – I’m sorry, did I say “remembered?” I mean, I saw the distinct image of dead bodies floating in oil. Why did I see that? What a stupid thing to see? I don’t even know why I went inside and cried after that.

The next day I was laying on the waterbed and a man appeared inside the room this time, rather than outside. He was dressed as a cyclist. Also, a door was laying on the waterbed. As though someone was doing construction and absentmindedly laid the door there when they finished for the day.

I eyed that cyclist suspiciously. I was concerned that he might try to “explain something to me”. I just looked at him. Nobody said anything. He just looked at me.

It was uncomfortable laying there with the door taking up all the good space on the bed, so I resolved to move it and lean it up against the wall.

When I picked it up, I had another confusing swirl of images. Fire! Lots of fire! Fire everywhere! Sky. Fire and sky.

That’s so stupid, I thought. This is totally that cyclist’s fault. Whatever, screw him. I spent the rest of the day cleaning the house. During dinner that night, I did not mention the cyclist in the parlor and neither did anybody else. I didn’t mention that door, and neither did anybody else.

The next day, I confronted the cyclist. “What are you doing here? Are you going to try to explain something stupid to me?”

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said, gesturing toward the door. My heart sank.

“Fine,” I said. I opened the door and walked through.

And I remembered. I was a little girl, playing with my little friends. Things were different. The sky was a different color. The gravity was different. I was different and so were my friends. This was another planet, and we were aliens from another planet. That’s strange. I must’ve been using some strange alien projection power to live my entire life on earth. What a fun game! I started to tell my little friends about my strange life on earth, and about the co-op I lived at, and about the oil and the fire. Wait, what oil? What fire?

The cyclist stood next to me. “This isn’t what I wanted to show you. This way,” he said. I followed.

So I was an alien from another planet. I came to earth and started acting like a human and disguising as one. I took a job with the university, doing some sort of landscaping. I was digging one day and I struck oil. Who knew there was oil here? Now, this was in a pretty out-of-the-way place. The university would never have to know that there was an oil reserve. I could set up stuff for myself and get rich, as long as nobody knew.

My co-workers came over. “What’s that you’ve got there?” they said. In return, I grabbed their heads and shoved them down under the oil and drowned them. What do I care? I’m an alien from space, not a human. And now that I’ve got all this wealth, I can start acting like an alien from space, too. I don’t have to play the human game in order to get food and shelter.

I built a little shed around my oil well, to keep it from being discovered. I bought a swank house in a swank neighborhood.

And then?

And then I had fun.

I could fly, of course, as an alien. I did so. I killed people. Just for fun. I destroyed things, just for fun. What do I care? These are humans, and I’m not one of them. I flew down to people that were walking and slit their throats before they knew what happened. I burned down houses. It’s all fun and games. One day, I saw a bunch of cyclists riding in a line. Riding very fast. As a prank, I flew down and landed in front of them. I formed my arm into the shape of a sharp sword and as they rode by, their heads all came off. Great fun.

This is how I lived for some time. I’d go around on some sort of a rampage, and then retire to my swank house in the swank neighborhood.

One day, it was halloween. My favorite. The humans pretty much celebrate death and destruction then. I was flying around and I saw a festival and a parade. I landed and decided to look like a human, to check out this festival.

I went into this tent where a bunch of kids had made some artwork, and their paintings were hanging up. Scary halloween imagery. Ghosts, witches, skeletons, me. Me? That’s right, my true alien form. I was one of the scary halloween things. They thought of me like a demon or a skeleton or something. Some nightmare thing. That’s not what I wanted to be. I’m just having a good time. But now that you mention it, I suppose I haven’t been very nice to them, have I? I am sort of a nightmare thing, aren’t I?

Well, if that’s how you want it to be, that’s how it is. I let loose fire from my fingertips. I burned the artwork. I burned the children. I burned the adults. I left the tent. I burned everything and everybody. There was a whole parade of people dressed like Ben Franklin riding horses. All of them, I burned. The entire festival. You want a nightmare thing? This is a nightmare.

And then it was over. My career as a nightmare thing. I sold my swank house in my swank neighborhood to a group that wanted to start a co-op there. I left and I formed myself a new human body. I came back to that co-op and moved in, as a human. And I forgot.