Tonight on the Sigh/Fie Channel...

I wake up on the third floor and remember that we have a houseful of people left over from the marathon, or party, or whatever festivities we just convened over the weekend. There are people sleeping comfortably on the several beds up here. I decide to have a ramble to see what the rest of the house looks like in the aftermath.

The second floor is definitely more crowded; I am surprised to see how many people are crammed on the beds down here. And then I realize, as I'm tiptoeing toward the exit door and the stairs (it's very dark in here and I can't see the floor) that I'm stepping on people. I slow down and try to readjust—there must be a clear path to walk between the sleeping bodies, but I can't find it. Fortunately I don't really seem to be disturbing anyone; occasionally somebody hollers "Ouch!" without selling it much, and then giggles.

I head down the stairs and, like the Haunted Mansion, I'm suddenly outside. There's just an enormous number of people here—sleeping, not sleeping, hanging out in the yard, which is as expansive as a public park. It is fence-to-fence people, like late night/early morning at a folk fest: not raucous but humming with residual party energy. I'm over by the eastern fence chatting with some folks who are, incongruously, still lying in bed, and I'm surveying the whole huge expanse of humanity when a violent commotion, over yonder and moving quickly, commands the attention of all the waking folk in earshot: a small group of humans are fleeing—it's a little more than running; they seem semi-airborne—from a pair of vampires. The latter are bald, pink, huge, and lithe—think Max Shreck meets Corey Stoll—and they chase the humans over the fence and into the night.

The crowd has reacted as expected, with screams and such. I tell myself resolutely: This is a gimmick. It's a prank. There are no real vampires. And sure enough I have immediate occasion to test that theory, because the vampires quickly come clambering back over the fence exactly where I'm standing. One of them jumps on me, knocking me down; the other does the same to a friend on my left. Fortunately, we have another friend who is standing behind us and who laconically narrates the "attack" like Penn Jilette, giving every bit of the trick away: Nice fence-hopping! Must be easy when you're on a wire. Oh, look, there's a crushable vial of "blood"! and such like. Thwarted, the vampires retire.

Later, I accompany Carlos to the basement rooms where he has long executed his sci-fi/paranormal experiments. There is a fatalism about this excursion, a definite "one last time" vibe: it is late in the movie and everything is going to hell above, maybe. The basement space is a classic set-up, with a control room overlooking an experimentation room; but Carlos has always worked solo, never experimenting on anyone: it's always been about communicating or learning more about... x.

Just now he is in the control room doing his sci-fi thing while I putter about the experimental space. I attempt to to put together the contraption Carlos sits on during his attempts—it's an essential condition for reaching the aliens or "the other side" or whatever he needs to reach; but it's also fiendishly difficult to assemble and balance and actually sit down on. It's two pieces of wood: one has five or six prongs all in a row, 2.5 or 3 feel long, fanning out like a splayed fork, which all sit on the floor. There's some sort of seat in the center of them. At the top where they converge instead of a straight fork handle, it curves back and down, like the handle of a mug or pitcher, though disconnected, ending in midair with a curlicue. I need to balance this end on the second piece of wood, which looks like a drum with one leg. So the fork tines and the one-leggèd drum rest on the floor and I try to get into the broom's seat while maintaining this impossibly awkward balance of mug-handle on drum head.

I do not succeed. I have never had good balance.

A hear a voice softly saying "Hello". I cannot tell where it's coming from. I listen for a while and I hear it again. "Hello." I abandon the contraption and head for the control booth to tell Carlos. He thinks the voice is "from beyond", wherever that is, and so he adjusts some controls and says "Hello" into a microphone. But it turns out the voice is entirely more mundane: it came from the other side of a door, heretofore unrevealed, but it's a plain old residential/commercial door, two horizontal rectangles of glass in the top, 20th century all the way, plain old knob, plain old lock, at the bottom of plain old basement stairs from the street level down to these rooms, which are now also a used bookstore.

And, look, it's Jon Lovitz behind the door, saying hello one more time before barging in and arresting Carlos. Or rather, he and his law enforcement brood attempt to arrest Carlos, but the lawyers are right behind LE down the stairs: they are led by Susan Sarandon, who looks fucking amazing in an indigo dress with an elaborate spiderweb decoration on her breast. And she makes quick work of Lovitz, threatening a wrongful arrest suit that'll keep his family unemployed for generations, or some such.

My sinuses are really dry. I need water.