Number 24: a dream.
I dreamed about Oxford-but-not, mutable as dreams are. I dreamed that in this not-Oxford, there were hills as there are profoundly not in Oxford-as-is, not-Oxford barely had any level ground to lay a brick on. And so in not-Oxford, they built their houses inside the hills and under the grass, with windows and doors and odd peaked rooftops pressing through the green, little glass conservatories perched on top of hills all odd-slanted with the roofs and front doors showing through, tree-roots growing down a danger to the roofs of houses, visible where a grassy overhang of dry earth had cracked open like a split fruit. Narrow pavements along the edges of the hills were eyed by windows, and here and there they had collapsed, where the soil had parched; there you had to climb up, and travel over the green-grassed roofs of people's homes before you could slither down again onto a road proper.
It's good to have a dream to make you smile on waking.
It's good to have a dream to make you smile on waking.