JREAMS - III - The Leaf Economy

A maple tree on a residential street is shedding leaves that negotiate their own descent - and someone has already decided they're worth five dollars each. The narrator and Kevin work the system with bent lacrosse heads and torn butterfly nets, intercepting value out of thin air, until a boy on rollerblades rolls in and everything starts changing state without warning.

What follows isn't escalation. It's a parking lot, a hotel with its lights on, and two men who shouldn't be moving in the same direction coming through the same door - Fat Andy the Juggalo and Yellow, aligned for the first time in any version of reality either of them inhabits.

"Come collect your friend."

They're talking about Kevin. The dream declines to finish the sentence.