I'm coming up to a sort of rocky ledge with a low (natural?) wall - all around there's sky, huge and beautiful. There's a mountain range in the distance. The colors are all yellowish and there's a sort of early-morning feel. It's not warm, but it's not real cold either. Somehow I know this either is Tibet, or we're coming to it. Down beneath the wall are a couple of flowers growing. They're very sturdy, thick-leafed, the kind of petals that start out green first, and shaped something like hyacinths. I think I'll eat one but I see it isn't fully developed yet. There's another, though, with a wider shape to it and quite thick (you might say meaty) rather than made up of lightweight petals, and I pull that and take bites of it. As I do (it doesn't really have much taste, by the way, but it's substantial) I find that buried in it is a small saucerlike bit of pottery, standard white-glazed with a flower pattern round the edge, much like diner dishes - I pull it out and see that it's the foot of a sort of vase or stemmed dish we'd found around here shortly before and we'd wondered where the foot was. It seems that the flower just grew around it. We go on. Soon we get to civilization of a sort. We're in a stairwell of a building I can tell is massive, and the scene is mostly dark, as if it were night, and we were seeing outside through windows, but we're not - on the left (facing down the stairwell) is a huge wall, and it shows a magnificent scene [although right now I can't remember what of, or even what it looked like - it may have even been an outdoor landscape, as if there were a window there. I halfway think the wall in front, on the stairwell, was indeed a window. But I'm not sure.] To the right is an open door into a lighted room, and people - not in large numbers - keep moving up and down the stairs and into and out of the room. They're all Orientals, these people, dressed in native clothes, the long coats, the hats with round stand-up brims, the slipper shoes. I'm aware that this place is equivalent in some respects to a shopping mall - of course, plain and simple, it is one, it has lots of vendors selling things that people want and need, all under one roof; but there's some fundamental difference in it, too. These people are taking the thing more seriously, for one thing. And it isn't set up intentionally for fun - though there are some neat things about it. The left-hand wall, for instance: at first I thought I was looking at (something, whatever it was!) really magnificent and elaborate. But now something has shifted - either it's done this on purpose, or my viewpoint has changed, but I see now that the whole thing is painted, an illusion. A bloody good illusion, but nevertheless not what I thought it was. Now that I know that, it bothers me - the whole situation bothers me. I'm not sure what to do next. At the same time, what's occupying my mind is the observation of this "shopping-mall" business. The idea of the mall is sort of "new" to us here, but when you think about it, there's nothing unusual about it except that we started building malls in places where there were already plenty of stores to be found. Elsewhere, stores are still grouped collectively for the convenience of the shoppers, but they have to come from farther away and do more business at a time. That's why there were fairs and street markets. It wouldn't be any sillier to build a regular mall in Tibet than in Texas, for heaven's sake. If people want to buy things, why wouldn't they do it in a mall just as easily as from rickety booths on the street? I'm on a city bus with several people from yoga class - I guess we've just left a class - including George and maybe Cynthia. I've got my purse and something else with me, which I stow on the seat. This is [another] "funny" bus - has its seats placed differently from regular buses, and it's up high like the out-of-town-coaches. We're all in a pretty fun mood, and we bowl along through a pretty part of town, with big trees and nice streets, older houses and occasional stores and offices. At one point the bus is diverted by road works from its regular route, and we turn to the left. Then, because of the diversion, we have to drive through a building - actually it's a lot like the Central area Pharmacy except it's got a garage attached. There's 2 sections to it. You can pull in the front or the back - the front is a bit more finished, with matching red brick to the store - you can enter the store from there. The back is different, with painted walls, a little more garage-like. The bus stops in the front; it's going to wait there to catch up to its schedule, and we all pile out of it to stretch our legs and look around. This is a place we know anyway, but it's neat. There's a sort of art exhibit in the back section, various things stuck up on the wall as if a children's school class had done them. Sue S is here (suddenly - I don't remember her being on the bus) and she's looking at them with us. And Tree is here, too - this place is only a short distance from where I live - on the street in back, matter of fact - and he's been exploring down here, I guess. He's come in the back door (both are open), and I pick him up and show him to the people. Actually I'm surprised he's letting me do that, and I'm keeping a good strong grip because he's beginning to get twitchy - but Sue and some others say, oh, what a pretty kitty, and I make up my mind to just go on home with him from here since we're so close, without waiting for the bus. I have to go back in to get my stuff, though. [And I suppose I put Tree down because he wasn't with me for the next part.] I climb up and go to get my purse and things, but while I'm here the bus starts to move. I guess it must have been left in gear or something because it starts going right on out and across the street (the entrance faces another street), and carries on for a couple of blocks. It stops eventually because it runs up against something, I guess, but it's a bit precarious. I can see that the street is going a bit downhill and if it starts to roll again it'll be hard to stop. I get out very carefully and go around to the front, thinking I might push it backward off of the incline, if I can (it's not such a big bus at the moment, you see - it seems like a possibility). But it's just barely starting to move again, and I give it a push, but no go - oh dear. I leap out of the way and remember I still haven't got my things, so I jump back on. The bus gathers momentum and rolls onward, down a street and around a curve and finally comes to rest somewhere, no particular damage done. I am joined now by a little guy in a rather exotic outfit - he's not quite midget-sized, but definitely well below average. (Rather good-looking though - dressed up sort of like, you might say, a warrior-elf. Maybe that's what he is. He's got on some sort of blue loincloth affair, and boots - dark hair, not too long - looks tough but still cute.) (I don't know where he comes from, but I'm not shocked to find him there - maybe he was hiding inside or something - I'm sure he didn't come in from outside.) We discuss the situation, which is more involved than it looks - we need to contact somebody for help. We can't handle this bus on our own (it's become something more like a spaceship now, and much larger), we know there's normally a crew of 2 men to run it, and we can't just leave it where it is and go. (I don't know why.) We poke around some, and find the radio to call the central-whatever with, and send a message to send help. That done, we banter around some more - this all seems like a rather fun adventure - and sort of get cozy. He proposes having sex, right there in the cabin, and I think it sounds like something of a lark, and say yes - I've never had sex with an elf before, for sure, and it might be very different, who knows? We've got nothing better to do till the rescue party gets here, although we don't know when that'll be. [Actually a fair amount of time has passed already.] Suddenly, as he moves over me lying on the floor, he gets bigger - much bigger. He sort of stretches out till he looms over me, and I don't like it. I say so, and next he reaches beyond me over my head to a shelf where he's put something to be handy. It's a kind of face-mask, only it's made of beads (not fine little round beads but cylindrical mostly, they're white and red, maybe orange and yellow too) and it fits over his chin loosely, like a beard. The look on his face has gone very serious, the way you do when the playful part of sex gives way to the other feelings. At that moment, the "crew" sent out from the central office arrives. We break apart in a hurry, as you might imagine, and explain who we are, and what happened. There are 2 men and a woman, they look very cold and matter-of-fact, but ask us to help (by doing something, but I don't remember what - it involves looking around the "ship"). I go "downstairs" - toward the front of the place we're in - you might call it a cockpit - it no longer looks like a bus, there's a wall behind, very "ship"-like - there are stairs, or a ladder to the next level. I hadn't even realized this was here. There's a bathroom down here, good, I need one, and go across the room towards it, but a man goes into it before me, so I have to wait. Now I'm confused. Who is this guy, and how did he get here before me? Is he one of the Tree that just arrived, and got here by another stair? Or has he been down here the whole time? If so, why didn't he say anything? Is he hiding? Oh, well, I'll just wait.