I woke with an unsettled feeling. The leather briefcase sat innocuously on the chair in the corner, as banal and impenetrable as ever. What had been inside it, in the dream? But already the “plot”—Gerry Van Gelder, I thought, Mr. Reinecke!—was fading from memory.

Later that morning I was in the hallway outside my office when some movement outside the window caught my eye. It was a group of graduate students one level below me—walking along the parking lot heading toward the center of campus. One of them had apparently just said something very funny; the whole merry little band was convulsed with laughter. They would be heading to the coffee shop connected to the museum, I assumed, and I was grateful not to have encountered them in the hall on their way out, as they could be loud and boisterous when they traveled like that in packs.

In the break room I noticed that a copy of the weekly paper was lying on the small white plastic table in the corner—the same paper in which I’d read the notice for my father’s open house, the same paper in which, in what felt like a lifetime ago, I’d inadvertently read my own horoscope. But this was a new edition, of course, this week’s edition, and I slid it toward me and began to flip through its pages.

This time is different, I thought. This time there is no Kirstie to disturb me; I can do whatever I want—I can read whichever part of the paper pleases me. If it’s the horoscope I want to read, I can read it. I found the page and watched as my index finger slid along the little pictures of animals until it came to rest on the silhouette of the goat, with its slender, curving horns. I could feel my pulse beating faintly in my fingertip.

Dear Capricorn, the text beside the goat read. This new moon will be in graceful angle to your ruler, so it’s safe to expect that a happy romantic surprise is due. With that in mind, circulate! Be open to meeting new people—and in the meantime, this would be a good week to focus on getting in peak physical shape: So go ahead and join that gym you’ve been curious about. Sign up for that fitness class you’ve been considering.

The coffee maker clicked itself off just then, and I turned to look at it as though it had just spoken aloud.

What?

What meaningless garbage was this?

Was this the same weekly paper I’d read before? I turned back to the front page. It was.

Well, I thought, pushing the paper away from me. Well. Unable to complete the thought, I stood, retrieved a mug from the cabinet, and poured myself a cup of coffee.