By Jay Horton

It was fluffy, I'd like to think, because it seemed pretty obvious pretty quickly that this was heaven and heaven should be ultra-fluffy, like an Ikea store reverse-engineered from a cloud, but the lingering impression was more a tangible fluorescence. It was a dream, for that matter, and a dream I've tried to remember under many different circumstances, and impressions are bound to transform themselves. Not that this is a dream journal. People who write dream journals end up somewhere else entirely.

It's just a chat about a dream, one I keep coming back to, and I'd found myself in line a long line of massed humanity queuing to the horizon with an irritatingly-blithe purposelessness. Nobody smoked, nobody talked or fidgeted, but it all moved swiftly enough until I found myself in sight of a vague kiosk. A video store, it seemed, an old school minimall vendor of eccentric selection, creepily passionate clerks and negotiable lending policies.

It felt safe and welcoming (and, again, detailing picturesque dreams to a column lies somewhere between rŽsumŽ writing and homoerotic fan fiction for the uncomfortable make-believe) and yet bled a tension, a palpable sweaty-crotched urgency. People, customers of all stripes, said a few words, were handed what must've been old-school videotapes and nobody seemed to find this odd.

The clerk was Armenian, I think, and spoke perfectly unaccented American with a complete lack of interest that was weirdly calming. "Carol Hurley" was the beatific older woman three spaces ahead, and, after a moment's computer time, he turned to an enormous bank of smudged white cases and pulled one aside. "Carol Hurley, sure," he smiled widely. "Family musical, great set-piece in Hawaii, cute daughter, heart." He patted his chest. "Heart."

A pockmarked meth-dealer/college-basketball-coach type apparently named Grant McFadden, the next in line, immediately tucked his video into the folds of his stained pea coat as our clerk stared daggers and the computer screen flashed NC-17. A boy, a bespectacled Asian shyly unleashed an unpronounceable name, and our clerk (Pete?), after a seamless transaction, responded, fluent and reassuring."Jay Horton." That seemed the thing to say, and Pete's fingers danced with dulled facility across the coffee-stained keyboard. Confused, he shook his head. "Jake Horton? I've a pretty recent sex-romp from Las Vegas that..."

"No, no - Jay Horton. JAY Horton! 2004. Druggy travelogue? Romantic comedy with adult situations? It might be a collegiate drama, though I'd think more backstory, really. More indie; not a family drama, it wouldn't be a family drama. I could see a musical, maybe, if they played up the - yeah?"

"Sure, sure, 'Erika Roberts,' right? You're the asshole first husband, sure. Wicked dialogue. I've seen that with the wife on Oxygen, like, twice now. Small part, but you totally aced it," Pete said.

This was meant to be reassuring. The tape appeared, somehow, I picked it up, somehow, and somehow knew to step through a '70s beaded curtain suddenly shimmering beside the counter.

I hadn't really noticed what happened to the folks after receiving their videos, and I was more than a little curious about Grant McFadden, too. But dreams and heaven and indulgent columns work that sort of way. An all-too-tangible modestly priced hotel room realized itself, and I couldn't find the beaded curtain anymore. Or, for that matter, a door of any kind. Or a minibar. There was a bible - and, by this point, I really wanted to know more about that purgatory Gramma talked about. There was also a VCR. And the bible had no index.

It wasn't that bad, "Erika Roberts: The Movie." I did ace my few scenes, and came across as thoroughly likable for what was essentially a bastard's role. Despite the lack of any physical resemblance, Jeremy Piven nailed the overall persona, and, by any perspective, I had all the best lines. Of course, there was no ending at all - we left off with Erika hearing the news about poor Jay, but it's hard to bitch about that without sounding petty.I guess I just never imagined my fatal flaws so transparent, so utterly soap opera in their predictability. The self-destructive tendencies, the glib hubris, the continual refusal to gauge the measure of reality never gathered any tragic momentum. A slow decline from entirely imagined heights, absent even the pretense of depth, sort of defines comic relief.

And I sat there, replaying the best moments, utilizing freeze-frame to beat out a quick one and desperately attempting, awakening coherence already streaming through the haze, to draw some lesson from the ether.

That character, my character, me, I needed an epiphany, I absolutely shrieked life-changing epiphany to postpone the inevitable. To forestall complete fated irrelevance. To assume, to wholly embrace a seriousness of purpose that claimed life's journey as a journey existing beyond a series of easily cinematized preview moments. To see the people and places and events unfold around me without context, without expectation, without television and movies and a million billion filmed moments to compare and judge. To live, simply and honestly.

Mostly, though, I want to direct.

Editor's Note: Jay Horton's student film "That Night Morgan and Me Talked Hockey Until Paul Came Over With a Bottle and Morgan Puked and We Got it on Tape But the Camera Was Upside Down on the Bed So it Looked Like He Was Puking Straight Up in the Air Like a Fountain" will be showing in his basement for the next few hours.