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Society and has been hailed as one of the true gentlemen in our field.” The man’s untidy beard trembles a bit as he pronounces these words. “He will be speaking to us today on the topic of his latest research in Perturbation Theory, which will be published in the March issue of
Nature
.” And with a mincing step to one side, he yields the stage by saying, “Please welcome Theodore Reveil.”
    What he didn’t expect, what he wasn’t prepared for, was quite this elaborate an introduction, and then, from the room full of people who had been waiting for him, a steadily rising round of applause, like a small wave that builds to something faintly menacing as it rolls up on itself and reaches the rocky shore, as if he is not just about to undertake his presentation, but has already completed it. So, at least to this extent, his reputation does precede him. But instead of reassuring him that whatever he has to say next will be accepted by these people as a kind of mildly interesting and enlightening hour of entertainment, the dozens upon dozens of hands beating together, first out of phase in the ragged disjoinder of spontaneous appreciation and then somehow falling for a moment into a kind of syncopated seven-metered rhythm—instead of giving him the confidenceto simply launch into his talk (which is titled, as everyone can see projected in foot-tall letters on the screen behind him, F INITE R ESOLUTION OF F OURTH -D EGREE P ERTURBATION T HEORY AND T HE C ONSEQUENT I MPLICATIONS FOR M T HEORY R ESEARCH ), reminds him of exactly how much is at stake in the delivery of the next several hundred words that will come out of his mouth.
    He wonders now what Ilene is doing. She will be blissfully unaware of the plight he is in, having assumed that he of course found his notes upstairs in the room precisely where he must have left them. She will be settling into the chair at her cooking class, in the old house that has been converted into a combination spa, bed and breakfast, and New Age learning center that they passed on their walk through the central city yesterday afternoon, in a neighborhood that alternates between slightly rundown bungalows in need of paint with dusty front yards and the occasional Victorian two-story that has been turned into offices for struggling lawyers or architects. She will be settling herself into the chair with a pleased look on her face, the gentle smile and crinkle around the corners of her eyes that she gets when all the moving pieces of her life have come together into a moment of perfect satisfaction. There will be other middle-aged ladies and young doctors’ wives there with her, maybe ten or fifteen altogether, chattering, introducing themselves, looking forward to watching the chef from the bed and breakfast concoct several new dishes they can taste and then try to emulate at home. He wonders if this is perhaps what love is, nothing more than seeing the world through the eyes of another person, sharing the experiences of your life with them, even in imagination,inhabiting their consciousness remotely, and, in turn, wanting them to somehow also see the world as you see it too.
    He wishes he were there with her. If this universe were really nothing more than the dream of some sleeping giant consciousness, he could make this afternoon turn out exactly how he wants it to. He could slip out from under the pressure he has loaded on his shoulders, the expectations that live within the heads of the people that sit before him, staring at him, waiting for him to open his mouth and speak. If they are all living within that same being’s dream together with him, he is the same as them and can make them think whatever he wants them to think, he can make his words perform whatever magical somersaults of logic and reasoning he has been envisioning now for weeks to suitably impress them. He can be the dream and the dreamer too.
    But that is not the world he has been taught