I had a strange dream last night that I was being pursued by some random psychopath who was pissed off at me because I had foiled his attempt to kidnap several small children for whatever nefarious purposes. We got into a bizarre car chase–he had a Crown Victoria, and I was in an RV, and we got up in the mountains going through hairpin turns. This lasted about as long as one would expect, and then by mutual consent we got out and proceeded on foot, as it would be much less stupid.

That wasn’t the weird part.

The weird part was that just as random psychopath was catching up with me, we ran over the crest of a hill and saw before us some architectural monstrosity that resembled nothing so much as the Death Star crossed with a pipe organ in the mind of H.R. Giger, only less cool than either. It was khaki and kidney shaped and had giant metal smoke stacks with huge red jewels on them. It was hideous. Also loathsome and non-Euclidean and possibly it danced an eldritch saraband in the bloated squamous moonlight, too. It was that kinda building. I turned to Random Psychopath and said, in horror, “My god, is that the new shopping center?” “I think so,” replied the psychopath. Attempts to kill one another forgotten in the face of this soul-sucking horror, we looked at each other, shook our heads in dismay, and then I woke up.

I got no ideas on that one. Possibly some part of my brain is expecting Lovecraftian shopping malls to start springing up any day now.

Oh, and in case anyone’s reading “Digger” via here–Digger 10 is up.