Fly on the wall again

In his fitful sleep, Jacob dreamed...

Turning away from a doorway he walked down a few cement steps and then turned his head. She still stood in the doorway, sillhouetted by the light behind her. Or...something shifted perhaps, and she was the light, or the light proceeded from her...not pure white, but brilliant and sparklingly yellow-golden it shone, splintering from her fingertips, her eyes, her heart. He turned to walk down the sidewalk now, and her light fled in front of him, chasing and flashing its way down alleys and around corners, leaving illuinated impressions in his mind like the afterimage from a lightning bolt.

As he walked, trailing his fingers along rough brick walls, his feet tripped and tangled suddenly. He stumbled, caught himself by bracing a rigid arm against the solid masonry, and looked down. His long grey coat had become wrapped around his shoes, but as he tried to unwind it he found it bulkier, the sleeves flowing and swathing his arms as they struggled to free his feet. Helplessly enfolded in thick grey wool, he fell forward, flailing to find a firm support but failing to feel anything but the fluid weight of his new-found burden.

He tumbled now through golden-lit space, somehow landing on his feet, his arms spread wide for balance. In the light, in his dream, he could now see himself clearly. The fedora and coat he usually wore for protection in River City's coolly biting fall winds had been transformed to the elaborate robe and near-comically pointed hat of a wizard. Looking like something out of a fantasy novel or video game, his appearance immediately conjured everything typical about a Wizard: frail but with deep wisdom in the secret arts and inner workings of the Universe and Beyond, holding a power unknown to mere mortal men.

The light suddenly somehow grew brighter, flooding and disintegrating his costume until he fell from his dream shattered and returned to consciousness where he was no storybook wizard in robes but a prisoner in a small cell, with a guard shining a flashlight in his face.

It was Laughlin.

"Come on, Fisher, get dressed. You've got a visitor."