where i live and what i did

A city has been developing, night by night. It's increasingly hilly in the east, where I live, in a neighborhood full of coffee shops and churches and private clubs for horse enthusiasts. Its subway system is labyrinthine. At least four lines intersect at each stop, in cavernous stations with tiered platforms set up like an Escher painting. The newest stations are shiny, metallic mega-malls, full of stores and robots. The station near my house is older, dirt-packed and grungy. Trains stop at random spots, sometimes on different tracks that are only accessible by jumping down between the rails and scurrying across with all the rats.

On weekends I take the train west. At the far end of the city, the densely-packed neighborhoods give way to a series of narrow islands. A single road and multiple bridges connect them, lined with palm trees and roadside diners that specialize in key lime pie.

Most recently, I left the town entirely and ended up in Las Vegas, my least favorite place on Earth. I wandered through themed hotels and ended up with some guy who looked like Eric Bana in the backwoods on the outskirts of town. The heavy forestation seemed unlikely. We met in an abandoned campsite in someone's backyard and fell into step with each other as we beat through the underbrush.

We eventually parted ways, only to run into each other a few hours later. Eric Bana was going nuts. He was jumping over cars and sweating profusely. "You have to help!" he screamed. Apparently someone had called him and told him they had been kidnapped and taken to an unknown location, where they were tied to a chair, stabbed with a very large fish hook, and left to die. Eric Bana was trying to locate this person. "Call 911!" he told me. So I did.

* * *

I woke up early the next morning in a cold sweat, knowing I had done something horribly wrong. The 911 operator had put me on hold, so I told Eric Bana I'd call them back in a few minutes. He ran off to jump over more cars and break into houses and crack some skulls. I wandered back to the main strip and completely forgot about the unknown person gutted like a fish in some rec room somewhere. Vegas does that to you; it's so distracting. I desperately called 911 again, and left a message for Eric Bana, but in the back of my mind I knew it was too late.