there was a scent of chocolate in the air.

it hovered, untraceable, a mist, a fog. he closed his eyes, drank in the smell, turning this way and that, blind, searching the winds. but it never revealed itself.

he opened his eyes again, and it was as though he were seeing it for the first time. curtains withdrawing. the play spread out in all its majestic color and pageantry...

there were many moments like this in his life, when he would distract himself and return, and it would be as though he were in it, but not. it was a habit. no, it was more than this. it was his true position. in dreams, he was an observer, no matter how relevant he seemed to the goings-on. and sometimes he felt that dreams reflected the truth, and that his waking life, with its seeming solidity, and its apparent laws of causality and intent, THAT was the dream. so even as he knelt to participate and partake of it all, it was as though he were watching everything from a seat in the darkness, drinking it all in so as to guess the significance, but not too efficiently- for he also wanted to be surprised...