Complicated

Dreams they do complicate one's life. Urquhart was in Tokyo some years back, just coming out of a twelve hour snooze and the worst phase of his jetlag, when what should come wafting in on the August breeze but the sound of a P.A. truck rolling through the neighborhood. The driver was chanting something over and over in a mournful pentatonic way, as if he were a Shinto muezzin.

Urquhart heard and was instantly back in that dream. Only this time, with a sudden pulse of heart-wrenching terror, he realized that he could make out — or was about to understand — what the Caller was saying. He very nearly screamed.

It turned out the truck was from a recycling company, offering to exchange rolls of toilet paper for bundles of old newsprint.