Then I am in a room. It is still dark. There is something in the room, a scheme, a sound. Something is turning, in a haze. I try to see it, but I can't get a clear view of it. All I see is a curved body of glass. Huge it is, and turning. I want to get closer, but there is no way. All I can do is stand and try to figure it out from the distance. An hour glass, I think. It looks like a giant hour glass. For a moment I can see the sand, streaming down, falling from present to past, falling through space. Then the haze gets denser, like fog flooding a room, moving me away. Yet the picture remains.

That's the only memory June has of the dream when she wakes up. She lies in bed, trying to remember. There had been more. There had been something. She closes her eyes again. And falls asleep. It's an empty sleep, it doesn't take her back to the place, it is nothing but sleep. So she sleeps too long, later than usually. No clock left to wake her, she has put the alarm out already, convinced that she is awake. Something is wrong, she knows it when she hears a cat meowing outside, scratching the door.

Realizing that it is Monday, June moans, and reaches for the clock, to figure out the time. Seven already? How can that be? Shouldn't there be more light outside at seven? She looks at the clock again. It's not seven, it's six. Relieved she moves under her blanket again, trying to ignore the cat, trying to remember the dream. It is there, somewhere. She pictures the last scene she saw in her mind, the haze, the sand clock. From there, she turns backwards in time. There is more. She can almost touch it, can almost open the door back to dreamland. But the memory isn't coming closer, it is fading. Frustrated, she lies in bed. Two chances, two lost. Why, she thinks. Why didn't it come back. What did I do wrong. I was so close. So close.

A bell starts to toll. Six o'clock, she remembers. The church bell. But it sounds different, more distant. And it doesn't stop. The church bell, it would be ringing four times for the full hour. Then six times for six o'clock. This bell is different. It keeps ringing. June lies and listens, trying to make sense of the sound. Of the scheme she saw. And feels she got the wrong start to the day, to this week, even before she gets out of bed.

The day doesn't want to get better, it feels. In the kitchen, she spills the milk. Only that it isn’t milk, but orange juice. In the office, her boss is in a bad mood. Even her computer has a temper, she has to realize when she clicks the button to check her mail, but there is no internet connection coming up. Through the door, she can her boss yelling in the phone. It's easier with computers, she thinks. They have a restart button. On second try, the system works.

It's only when June looks through the calendar that her mood brightens. "Cinema Nora 7" is scribbled at the bottom of today's leaf. All she has to do now is get through the day.

Some minutes later, her boss passes her desk, holding a mobile phone in his hand.

"I am out for a meeting," he says, and off he is.

"Thanks for that," June mutters, after the door closes behind him, and gets to work. Maybe it's the better way, she thinks, starting in a mess and then working your mood up towards five o'clock.

In the afternoon, she checks the starting time of the movie again. The film they want to see has a double title. Aka it is called here, yet its original title is different, written in a language June doesn’t know the name of. Still it was June who had suggested it. Nora had agreed immediately. "I wanted to go there when it was released, but then thought I'd save it for a rainy day," she had said. Which definitely matched today's weather.

June watches the water pour down, while she phones Nora's number, for a quick chat. Instead of Nora, it is an anonymous woman who replies. "The mobile number you phoned is currently switched off. Please try again later," she informs her.

June checks the number. But it is Nora's. "That is strange," June says, talking to herself. This must be the first time that Nora has forgotten to charge her phone. With a shrug, she puts the mobile into her bag, and starts to clean her table. Quarter to five, and her boss hasn't returned. With some luck, she will be out and gone without seeing him again for the day.

I should have known better, June tells herself as she hears footsteps approaching just some seconds later. Of course, it's him. With a handful of important and cannot wait and could you please errands to run. June bites her lip. Would have been too easy for a Monday, wouldn't it.

It takes another hour, until she finally can leave the office. At least the rain has stopped, June thinks, as she walks through the car park. She can't wait to get out of this place, to drive into the night, into the open, leaving those huge office buildings behind. The air is clear and fresh, and when she drives down the slope from the office area, the whole valley unfolds underneath, and she can see millions of lights, all those windows lit inside, and all those lights moving outside, cars forming lines, marking streets. She slows down, admiring the view. I could just drive and drive, she thinks, almost regretting that she is going to the cinema. The world in front of her, tonight it almost looks like in a movie.

"Tomorrow," she promises, to herself, and the view. "Tomorrow I will go for a drive." Reaching the city, she isn't that sure any more. It's early evening, and the streets are filled with cars. There is no cruising, there only is stop and go. It seems to take ages to get to the other side of the city. Still she is on time when she arrives at the mall. She parks the car and makes a mental note of the place she left it - green deck, right side. An elevator takes her straight to the entrance of the mall, where film posters greet her.

For a moment, June just stands there, gazing at the posters, breathing in the atmosphere of the mall, feeling like it is Friday night. And it well could be, with all those people walking in and out, dressed up in the latest fashion, pastel tops under leather jackets, black skirts over blue leggings. Now for the tickets, she decides, and enters the cinema hall. A huge stairway leads to the first floor, where the booths are. On the way up, she passes a forgotten Halloween ghost who stands at the side, looking slightly out of place. Above him, Alien and Predator figures are towering, their eyes staring cold. Then the booths.

"Two tickets for Aka," June says.

The clerk shows her the available seats on a screen. "Row 10, Places 55 and 56, would be free," he explains.

"Looks good to me."

A printer comes to life while June pays the tickets.

"There you are," the clerk says. "Enjoy the film."

"Thanks," June says, then it's the next in line.

Now for a coffee. That's what she has been looking for all afternoon: a cup of cappuccino in the Barista, an Italian bar restaurant. It's just around the corner of the cinema. June gazes through the huge windows, looking for Nora, but she isn't there yet. So June steps in alone, and walks through the café, trying to find the nicest table. There is one for two, at the side, looking out to the mall. That is perfect, June thinks, this view to the plaza in front, to the people coming and going. She sits down, and tells herself that Nora will be there, mobile phone or not. It’s only then that she realizes that the mobile phone in the hands of her boss had looked like Nora’s. Before she can draw any conclusion out of this fact, Nora arrives. They order their cappuccinos, and June asks about the mobile.

”I think I have forgotten it at home,” Nora tells her.

”If it isn’t at your place, then let me know,” June says.

”Sure, but why shouldn’t it be there?”

”I don’t know,” June says, “it’s just that I was worried when I couldn’t reach you.”

Nora nods, and they spend the time until the film starts talking, and watching people pass by.

"I could just stay here," Nora says.

"Me too. But I already have the tickets."

So they go.

When June enters the cinema hall the second time, she sees the huge sign on the wall, lit with a hundred little lights, forming the word 'Dream Palace.' Walking up the stairs, June thinks of her dream journal, and can't help but smile.

"Maybe that is what films really are: dreams put on celluloid. And the place they show it, it is the palace of dreams," she says.

"And the ones who go to see them, they are the dreamers?" Nora continues the line of thought.

”Or the ones who are in need of dreams,” June jokes, even though a part of her can’t laugh about it.

They buy a pack of popcorn, and then walk into the cinema that shows Aka. The lights are already dimmed when they walk in, and there is advertising playing. Some moments later, the film begins. The first scene is set in a distant place, there are huge flatlands, canyons, and then, at the top of a mountain, a tower in front of a moving sky.

June gasps. The tower, it looks almost like the tower in her dream, round and high, looking out to a valley.

June points at it, amazed. "The tower," she says, realizing at the same moment that Nora won't understand what she is talking about. Great, she thinks. Nora really must think I behave like a child, pointing out the obvious.

"Mhm," Nora answers.

"It was in my dream," June tells her friend. But before she can say more, the scene changes. A figure appears on the screen, wearing a dark coat, holding an hour glass. In the glass, reflected, another place, another scene.

It’s all about the tower, June learns. The tower, it once was a transmitter between the realm of day and the realm of night, between the waking and the dreaming. But in a time of trouble and turmoil, the guardian of the tower was killed, and with him, the key to the tower got lost. Now the tower stands there, void of function, all that is left is stones, while the sand of time is pouring down, from the one side to the other, shifting the balance more and more.

June sits there, taken by the film. For two hours, she is there, too, in this other world, the world of dream towers, of magicians, of lost keys, in this shifting place of realms and dreams.

Her friend wants to leave right after the letters ‘The End’ appear on the screen, but there are so many getting up at the same time that June suggests to stay, just for some minutes. So they stay, and watch the credits scroll down. It is one line that catches June’s eyes again: The production company of the movie: Dreamworks. What a coincidence, she thinks, keeping her thoughts to herself this time.

On the way home, the air isn't clear any more. There's a change of weather coming, bringing humid air. Pictures flash through her mind while she drives, all those moments of the day, the hourglass in her dream, the spilled milk in the kitchen, the office, the rain falling, the drive through twilight, the cinema, the key, the tower. This picture of the tower.

Then the haze gets denser, like fog flooding a room, moving her away. Yet the picture remains.