"I dreamed I was on a train, the subway kind of train where you face people sitting on the other side, and Trump was right across from me. He started reading The Gettysburg Address…."

That's what I texted Meade just now, so then I pasted the statement in Grok. Didn't ask Grok to do anything with it, certainly not to write it up into a short short story, but that's what it did:

The car rattled along the elevated track, fluorescent lights flickering like a bad motel sign. I was wedged between a guy scrolling TikTok and a woman clutching a bag of oranges. Across from me sat Donald Trump—orange as the fruit, hair defying gravity, suit somehow unwrinkled despite the heat. No Secret Service. No crowd. Just him, me, and the Address. 

He didn’t look up at first. Just unfolded a crisp sheet of paper from his breast pocket, the kind you’d expect to hold a Big Mac order. Then he cleared his throat—that throat-clear, the one that precedes every rally—and began. 

“Four score and seven years ago…” 

His voice filled the car like it was Madison Square Garden. The TikTok guy’s thumb froze mid-scroll. The woman’s oranges rolled to the floor. Even the train seemed to hush its screeching wheels. 

“…our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” 

He wasn’t reading to the paper. He was reading at me. Those tiny eyes locked on mine, daring me to look away. I couldn’t. The words felt heavier than the subway car itself, like each syllable carried the weight of every battlefield and ballot box. 

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war…” 

A kid two seats down whispered, “Yo, is that really him?” His mom shushed him, but she was staring too. Trump didn’t notice. Or didn’t care. He just kept going, voice rising over the clatter of tracks. 

“…testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” 

The train lurched into a tunnel. Darkness swallowed us, broken only by the emergency strips glowing red. For a second, his face vanished—just the voice, disembodied, echoing off the graffiti-scarred walls. 

“We are met on a great battle-field of that war…” 

Light flared as we burst back into daylight. He was leaning forward now, elbows on knees, paper trembling slightly in his hand. Not from age. From something else. Conviction? Irony? I couldn’t tell. 

“…that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion…” 

A tear? No. Just sweat. But his voice cracked on “devotion,” and for one impossible second, the caricature dissolved. Just a man reciting words older than any of us, words that outlasted every tweet and soundbite. 

The train hissed into my stop. Doors slid open. I stood, legs shaky. Trump didn’t stop. Didn’t even glance up as I stepped onto the platform. 

“…that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” 

The doors closed. The train pulled away. Through the grimy window, I saw him fold the paper, tuck it back into his pocket, and stare straight ahead—like he’d never been there at all. 

I woke up with the taste of iron in my mouth and the echo of his voice in my ears. The Gettysburg Address. On the F train. Delivered by the one guy who’d probably tweet it in all caps if he could. 

Some dreams don’t need interpretation. They just need you to listen.

The dream wasn't like that at all, though. In my dream, Trump was speaking quietly enough that it was up to us, the train riders, to notice that he was reading something that deserved reverence.

And it wasn't a New York City subway train. Despite the interior with seats facing seats, it was a high-speed train in the Netherlands. We were headed to the city the New York Times recommended in "All the Canals and Charm of Amsterdam. None of the Crowds. Leiden, a city whose university is often called the Oxford of the Netherlands, features museums, gardens, murals and plenty of ways to stretch your mind" — published yesterday.

Trump got off the train with Dana Bash, another remnant of yesterday. She figured in my late afternoon post about John Fetterman. Trump and Bash went off strolling like an old couple on a low-key vacation.

I found myself in a little eatery — a Dutch version of "Midnight Diner." I was occupying space at the counter, so I needed to order something. I asked the chef what's the best thing on the menu, and he held up a piece of toast and said "Toast!"

A toast to us, the living... dedicated to the great task remaining before us....