I had a dream in which I was traveling through New York City and stopped for a night to see a show. As a travelled through the city I could not get lost. Even when I knew I had made a wrong turn I’d still be going in the right direction. Even when I’d accidentally checked in at a hotel that was far away from the theater, the walk to the theater was fast and easy.

The show was a play about three circus clowns. The first clown was alone and rising like an angel from the ground up to a cloud where two other clowns lived. The clown who was rising from the ground had jigsaw puzzle pieces falling out of his pockets.

Everything they say was a puzzle piece. Every movement on the stage was a puzzle piece. Each piece floated down from the cloud. At the end of the play  there was a large picture of the entire universe; all things known and unknown on the floor. The clowns softly descended through the air and landed in place.

The last three puzzle pieces.

The next morning after the play I was sleeping in the hotel next to my girlfriend. I woke up and discovered some things about room. There were no windows on one side of the room. I followed this wall until I came to a series of large food preparation machines. They were the kinds of things you might see at a carnival such as a cotton candy machine or large popcorn popper. One of the machines was making coffee for me.

Then I discovered the the hotel room was actually a very large warehouse space. And as I walked through the space back to my bed to figures entered the room behind me and called out to me. I was not afraid of them.

They were circus people; a man and a woman. They knew me. They had heard of me from the Bindlestiff Cirkus. They showed me that they had pictures of me on their wall. It looked like a big puzzle of circus posters.

They told me the name of their circus was “Mud Show Carnival”. I liked the name and I followed them.