Fictional Worlds

27. Parsifal confessed to me that she has never dreamed of Valis. Not once. In her youth, she learned of the city in a book: a philosophical dialogue where a poet, a knight, a musician, and a madman argue about the nature of reality while awaiting the arrival of a fifth person. Near the end, the madman recounts the story of Valis, which the others think is nonsense. Parsifal disagreed, and the city quickly became an obsession (she herself used the word 'obsession'). She said all this while pacing back and forth, refusing to look me in the face until the end.