TRANSCRIPT: 2026.311.02
TIME: 01:32
SUBJECT: Specialist Matthew Loren
**TOTEM IN USE**
SPC LOREN: Can you pass the pepper, dear?
[PAUSE]
Ah, thank you.
[PAUSE]
How were your dreams, dearest?
[PAUSE]
Me? I met a stranger in my dream last night.
[PAUSE]
There was something more than the haze of dreams that made her different. I cannot explain how I knew—especially now with cook’s best kedgeree before us and that dratted clock tower clanging. But there, as I walked through the bleary wood of my dreams, I knew the woman walking behind me did not belong.
[PAUSE]
What could I do but confront the woman and demand to know who she was? A man’s mind is a hallowed place.
[PAUSE]
I believed I frightened her, but alas, she tsked—Yes! Exactly like a tutor. I felt I had shrunk to my boyhood—and she said,
[IN HIGHER REGISTER]
“Look what you’ve done. My data is ruined.”
[IN NORMAL REGISTER]
Would you shut the window? That dratted clock will give me a headache.
[PAUSE]
Thank you, kindly. Where was I?
[PAUSE]
Yes, yes, she scolded me and produced from her robes a sheath of paper bound with wire and a milk white featherless quill. Then she said.
[IN HIGHER REGISTER]
“I’ll have you mark you as an outlier, I guess. Those can be interesting.”
[LAUGHS]
[IN NORMAL REGISTER]
I was. I was. Quite deflated. So I tried to regain myself and said. “You haven’t answered my question, ma’am.”
[PAUSE]
Rude? How? She was the intruder, traipsing about my mind. Besides, she didn’t take offense but merely shook her head and pointed behind me. She said something weird then as well. What was it? Something about finding myself…
[IN HIGHER REGISTER]
“You’d better catch up with yourself.”
[IN NORMAL REGISTER]
And I did, in a way. When I swung about, a ghostly image of myself walked up the path. I felt a sudden urge to run after it and—
My God! That clock! I thought you closed the window? No, don’t get up. I’ll do it.
When I “caught up” to myself, we melded together, and I forgot about the woman and her notebook.
[PAUSE]
Yeah, didn’t I mention the notebook? One of those tiny ones that fit in your back pocket.
Oh, the window’s shut. How is that clock so loud?
[PAUSE]
She kinda looked like you, dear. Brown hair…green eyes…mole on her chin too.
[PAUSE]
Are you writing this down? Why? It was just a dream, dear. Just a…
[PAUSE]
Who are you?
[PAUSE]
I’m not married. Try again.
[PAUSE]
Subject in sight. White female. Forties. Five foot eight to—
No. I— Stop—
White female. Five foot—
Oh God. What are you—
[SHOUTS]
Get off of me! I don’t want—I don’t—
[UNINTELLIGIBLE]
WHITE! FOUR! EYES!
[UNINTELLIGIBLE]
RED! RED! MY!
[UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMS]
[GASP]
[IN HIGHER REGISTER]
Clever rats breed clever traps.
END OF TRANSCRIPT
Painting from Smithsonian Open Access: Portrait Study by Thomas La Farge
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