The first thing I recall is being on a football pitch, and the ball had gone out of bounds on the left side.  I picked it up to make the throw-in, but when I held the ball I realized that it had gone flat.  I can’t recall exactly who, but it was either my mom or else my buddy J’s mom who handed me a ball pump.  I inserted the needle, then pumped with my right hand as I held the ball pinned to my torso on my left side.  I pumped it several times, to the point where it should have firmed up, but when I took the needle out the ball was still too soft, and I could feel air coming out of the valve.  I wondered how the ball had held any air the whole time up until then, then mentioned to others that something must be wrong with the valve.

There was a transition, then suddenly I was in a dimly lit office, sitting next to Trump at a table, across from a couple guys on the other side.  There was  a conversation or negotiation happening between Trump and the other side, where they apparently both agreed to terminate an existing contract that they had formed together beforehand.  It was done mostly symbolically, i.e. without much explicit verbal articulation.  Trump said a few words, then dipped the bottom of the stapled contract papers into a shallow tray which was filled with red wine.  I guessed that this effectively ‘dissolved’ the signature at the bottom.  There were a few more words exchanged, then the other side submerged their entire contract in the wine tray as well.  It seemed peculiar how it was all done without many specifics or acrimony; I remember wondering if it was possible that they could have altered the contract, or if they could have negotiated prior to this meeting, because the ‘deal’ seemed to have already been struck without transparency or specifics.  I was trying to fill in the blanks, as this agreement to dissolve the contract seemed more like a brief ceremony, a formality more so than a negotiation.  I remembered from law school that often contract negotiations, amendments or terminations, were often quite contentious, so the ease of this situation was surprising to me.

We stepped away from the table briefly, then a woman asked Trump about who on his team he had already ‘bonded’ with.  Trump pointed to a couple people around the table that he had– him, him, not him, her yes, etc.  Then she gestured toward the seat where I had been previously, and Trump gestured in the negative.  He shook his head and expressed more an element of yet-to-be-decided than a decisive no.  He just didn’t know yet.  I observed this and thought that they probably assumed I wasn’t paying attention to their conversation; I wondered if I had given the impression of being aloof.  Would they have spoken so openly with me standing right there? Anyway, I decided to sit down and carry on participating in the meeting to make sure I was on the same page with whatever was going on.

Then suddenly we were outside, and the situation was that as a result of the change in the agreement, Trump was now the tour guide for a montage of travel/tourist scenes– he was in the lead role rather than having delegated that duty to a staff member.  The tour we were on was somewhat historical in nature.  The first stop was outside an administrative building which indicated something about a soviet style socialized health care system.  Comments were made about how an individual’s health care plan was set up from childhood, and they decided the level of quality of care and a payment/financing arrangement based on the type of thing that the person would manufacture for their assigned lifelong job.  It was implied as something like you go in at 12 years old, they say you will be a widget-maker, and all widget-makers receive X level of care and must pay Y amount over their lifetime.  In the explanation was the tone of disbelief and disdain for a country holding the absurd belief that such a format would ever be successful.  Like how could they be so clueless?  It was also presented like an artifact of history, a type of remnant of bygone days.  Then Trump announced the next place we’d visit would be the location of the ‘original school’, and that it would be in Japan.

There was no further detail in the dream about the school itself in Japan; the dream just implied a sequence of several subsequent visits with the overarching theme of failed historical strict caste systems.  Then the tour group was in a café where it was busy and the space was tight and rather small.  There were two open seats next to each other at a small table next to the window, and two people left standing, myself and Trump.  I felt a natural sense of deference and allowed him to select his preferred seat first.  Then I sat beside him.  I then took the opportunity to give him a genuine, authentic compliment, not trying to flatter or win him over so much as express some appreciation.  I mentioned that I had noticed the change in the format since he was now taking the lead role for the tour.  I just added that I enjoyed the experience more, and I felt that the lead position seemed to suit him better as well.  As I said this to him, his face sort of morphed into someone else.  I don’t know exactly whose, but the hair was more like Christopher Walken’s in Batman Returns— it was an appearance of the archetypal classical music composer.  He just turned his head slightly and grinned a little, like my comment had ‘touched’ him a bit.  In that moment it seemed like we were seated in the back of a charter bus rather than in a café.

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