I was at the post office. The new one, near the border between Broomfield and Westminster. I had lost my wallet. Was that a few days ago? Anyway, it was missing. I had reason to believe it had been sent here. Some forgotten reason.

I walked in from the cloudy day, and got in the long line. I figured this was the right line, although I wasn't sure. Package pickup? That's what the other people in line were here for.

An instant later, I was at the teller window. I told the man I had lost my wallet, and wondered if they might have it here. Felt quite silly doing so. [Dark City: The automat? Nah. Not even close. That was night. This was day, and in a post office, albeit a cloudy day. I should have found a lightswitch.]

The man, the teller, went back behind a desk and started rummaging around. He pulled out a wallet. A slightly old, worn wallet, with the edge of a few bills peeking out the top. It was mine.

He opened the wallet, and looked inside. "What's your address?" He paused a moment, while I tried to recall. "Is it [Louisville Compound street number, name, and city]?" What an odd verification technique.

"Well, yes. Yes it is." I thought for sure he would want some way to verify that I was the owner of the wallet. Asking a single yes/no question wouldn't be very secure. I tried to think of some other piece of information that it might contain that he could verify. I was just getting ready to tell him where I worked, but just before I could blurt it out, he titlted the wallet so that the card with the logo of my company was clearly visible from my location. I sighed, and said eSoft anyway.

He seemed fully satisfied that I was who I said I was, and handed me the wallet. "Oh, and there's a $2 service fee for that."

Without protest, I took two dollar bills from the wallet, and handed them to him. As I walked out of the post office, down the long stairway(?) back to my car, I was just glad I had my wallet back. Imagine all the time and stress it would have taken to cancel the credit cards, the drivers license, and everything else I had in there. $2 was a small price to pay.

...

The fog was getting heavier as nightfall approached. I needed to get back on the interstate. As I drove over tho overpass, there wasn't another soul in sight on any of the roads. I pulled up to the red light and stopped. The car began to roll back down the slight incline. Was it ice, or was I in neutral? Luckily, there weren't any cars coming up behind me anywhere. The car kept rolling. The light turned green.

I engaged the clutch and stepped on the gas. A little squealing from the tires, and I was moving forward. Then I noticed that on the other side of the intersection, there was a cop sitting there. Not really doing anything. Just sitting there in his car. Maybe he was waiting for me to try to pass. Like the alien ship sent by The Hand at the jump port near the end of Legend of the Rangers.

I drove through the intersection as innocently as possible, down the onramp, and onto the empty freeway. The cop did not follow.

...

I had my movie schedule all figured out. A movie to watch every night of the week. I even had them written down and printed on the calendar. I don't remember which movies I was watching on which day, but I knew then. I still hadn't quite figured out which ones I would watch on Friday and Saturday night. Maybe Total Recall on one night, and Basic Instinct the next? Nah, but that would conflict with what I had already scheduled. What had I already scheduled?

I was going to call Zan Lynx back. For some reason, when he had been calling me a few days ago, the machine kept announcing that I was getting a call from Ronald Reagan. I didn't understand why. I hoped I wasn't coming down with what he had, but I suspected I might be getting sick, because I could feel the soreness in my throat as I worked in my cube. A little mild dizziness too.

Oh well. Nothing I could do about that now. Time to sit back and watch the movie.