When I was little, I had a dream. We met my aunt at a place like McGilvery Hall and she took me up the steps and through a door. Inside was a cavernous straight-walled tunnel: cold shadows of echoing concrete. It was a long journey. I was afraid but delighted, surprised but hungry for the adventure as it came.

When I was little, I had a dream. I sat on the floor with my legs in a double-U and watched unfolding pictures in a wooden frame. In a drab drear room a man ran back and forth: door to window, window door. A giant cat met him every time and he couldn’t escape. Afraid, I couldn’t look away. I never forgot it.

One day I rode with my boss across campus. As we pulled into the lane that leads behind McGilvery Hall, he mentioned the tunnel that used to run from there to Kent Hall to Merrill.

It was not a lie. It was not a dream.

I sat at Professor’s Pub in Kent with my friend. A movie was projected on a sheet behind the bar, some black-and-white cheesefest not worth my attention. But the incredible shrinking man trapped in the dollhouse caught my eye.

It was not a dream. It was not a lie.