The rumble of the trucks rolling over the ground mingles with the sound of falling rain. The wheels skitter on the wet surface as they turn a corner. Light spills out from a nearby window, the late-night store's grimy exterior indicates the quality of the area, not high. The wheels stop turning and Tor flips up the skateboard, catching it by the T-bar, she pushes open the shop door.

"S' up Tor?" The man behind the counter greets her cheerfully.

"N'un much." Tor's answer is cagey and avoids the question with a shrug.

"What'r you after?"

"I dunno, lemme look around yeah?" Tor sounds cocky and sure of herself.

The storekeeper takes out a pouch of tobacco and starts to roll himself a skinny hand-rollie.

"Want one?" He nods at Tor before licking the gum on the rolling paper.

"Nah, don't smoke, you know that." Tor sounds slightly annoyed as though the question insults or demeans her in some way.

The shopkeeper lights up his meagre dog-end and starts clocking up Tor's selections, a couple of chocolate bars and a can of lubrication oil. The ring of the cash register pierces the relative stillness of the shop.

"That'll be four bucks exactly." The pricing is drowned out by the revving of an engine outside, it's pitch rises to a roar and then glass fountains inwards around the car as it bursts through the shop window. The car crashes into a stack of shelves sending tins and cans flying everywhere. The door fly open and two men jump out toting handguns and wearing balaclavas. One of them fires his pistol wildly upwards; smashing a light-bulb.

"Open the goddamn till!" The other robber yells, pushing past a dumbstruck Tor as he makes his way to the counter. "Now!"

Behind him the driver of the car is trying to reverse, slowly he manages to ease the car back out through the window. With his gun stuffed carelessly back into his belt, the first robber grabs food randomly from the shelves.

"I said open the till!" the man holding up the store gestures with his pistol, "Get on with it then!"

Slowly, the shopkeeper starts to open the till, the home-made still hanging from his lips despite having gone out.

"Hurry up!" The ram-raider fires his pistol over the shopkeeper's head, he jumps as the bullet tears through the pinup calendar on the back wall. "Yikes! keep it down can't ya?" The shopkeeper mutters audibly. He grabs the notes from the till and hands them to the robber.

"Thanks for nothing shithead!, Right, let's go!" Both robbers start to back towards the shattered window, the one with the money covers Tor and the shopkeeper as the other scampers out. A squeal of tyres on tarmac and an engine roar and the ram-raiders are gone. The shopkeeper runs out of the store shouting after them, Tor grabs her stuff and slips away from the scene. A little way down the street she drops the skateboard to the floor, and pushing quickly with her foot skates off into the night.

In a darkened room a smoky haze fills the air, the only light in the room spills from the bar's refrigerator lights and the neon drink signs above them. The room, while lacking on light does not however lack people, noise or space. The tables around the room are sturdy, even if they are a little crude; the proprietor sets functionality above artistry, although he recognises a good graffiti tag when he sees one, sprayed onto his walls. Over the years he's built up quite a collection of the infamous street trash that frequent his bar's best pieces. He made sure that they did their best.

The smell of spray paint mingles with the aroma of stale beer and the next-day-scent of cigarette smoke. The resulting odour is part of the reason the barman likes his job, the other; he sees people deteriorate into degenerates, he studies them, watches them, and they don't even notice, or care. He likes people, likes to check them out and he likes his experiments. He creates various "lethal cocktails" from his extensive collection of liquors and uses his patrons as lab-rats. Each exquisitely crafted drink is deliberately concocted to stimulate a specific response in the drinker. He's been known to deliberately cause disputes, or match-make, or even, when pushed, kill. It is these drinks that ensure the perfection of his decoration, he is always very careful not to actually drink one of his own, or in fact at all. He likes the irony of the teetotal barkeep.

A life spent in these crummy bars has left the black man somehow immune to the violence that surrounds his life, to him it's just another of the wonderful aspects of humanity. Acts others would call inhumane he sees as perfectly natural, otherwise, why would they happen? He sees Man as nothing more than another beast, he devotes himself to finding the nature of that beast, and, his essential finding is that the beast denies it's own existence, Man refuses to believe that anything they, or others of the species for that matter is actually bad. The acts may be horrific, brutal, evil, but never actually bad. All the suffering that is in the world is there because of Man, but He blocks it out, refusing to admit His own guilt. The barman looks thoughtfully at the absinthe bottle as begins to prepare the drink of his next customer.

The first drink of the night at The Dreaming is always the personalised cocktail, free of charge of course. Never have two of these cocktails been the same for anyone, even if exactly the same "recipe" was followed in it's creation. The essential ingredient is contributed not by the black man behind the bar but by the drinker themself; state of mind. The drinks are merely crafted to bring out the character's personality, to break down their demeanour and leave the skeleton of the soul showing. They call him the Sandman, he doesn't like it. He's just the barkeep, he doesn't like the identity, it shows that they notice him; the last thing he wants. Every time this happens, wherever he goes, whatever kind of bar he works in they know who he is by the end, then he moves on. But, this place, his place, his bar, he needs to leave; they're too close, but, he can't move on, he's stuck in his own place at last, here in The Dreaming. He finishes mixing the cocktail and hands it to the loser at the bar, his sandy ponytail hangs over his shoulder and he hasn't shaved in a couple of days.

One of many such dropouts that have made The Dreaming, and Sandman their home and father. This one looks worse than most, a hairline scar runs across his right eye which is the milky white colour of blindness. With his good eye he looks at his complimentary drink.

"What's this one called, Sandman?" His voice is gentle, but carries to the barman's ears despite the noise of the bar.

"You call it." The Sandman looks levelly at the patron as a skewed grin crosses the drinker's face.

"Yeah," He knew this would happen, he wanted to name this one, yes, this one was special, this, he knew, was the one. He closed his eyes, sighed deeply and called. "Sweet Victoria." The Sandman smiles as he shoots back the contents, he knew the type, they always called after some girl or other, the one they had in line that night. They never got them, they couldn't, not with their mindsets anyway. Something nags at the Sandman's hind brain though with that name; Victoria, Victoria, Vicky, no, Torie, Tor. Tor? No, that couldn't be right, he shakes his head but something still niggles his brain.

At one of the tables in The Dreaming a group of men are gathered, empty glasses cover the surface of the wooden table and ash trays spill their dusty contents. Empty cigarette packets and packets of rolling papers litter the table, adding to it's clutter, small packets and lighters are the crowning touch. One woman sits at the table, somewhat bored by the laddish behaviour of the men she's sitting with. Long black hair cascades from her forehead and her eyes are sunken, emphasising the paleness of her skin. In front of her on the table is a mirror it's crystal smooth surface slightly coated with a white powder, a credit card lies next to the mirror and the smae white crystals are spread along one edge. A bag of the cocaine is on the table, the woman's hand rests on it carelessly. A glazed look is in her eyes as she stares across the room, idly she tips more cocaine onto the mirror and starts to slice it into lines. She pulls a note from her cleavage and rolling it into a tube, snorts one of the lines, she wipes her nose and continues her passive interest in the far wall.

"Ah that's good" "You shouldn't do this shit!" "Fuck off, It's great!" "It's fucking with your head" "Like I even care" "You really don't do you?" "I need this stuff man, It's fucking excellent" "Yeah, but it gets really shit in between" "That's why I keep scoring" "Why you don't need to" "Oh, I do" "Only cause you think you do" "Hell I like it"

Slowly the voices inside her skull drift away and their chatter dissipates. The woman frowns and absently starts to arange another line of cocaine, she's been like this since her lover died. Now, she is the only carer for her lover's daughter she's drifted around, but has found her place at The Dreaming. She's become like part of the furniture here, they call her Crack Whore, and everyone's been there. She does it for the drugs, she needs them. She thinks the drugs need her too.

Out on the streets Tor is skating home, it's started to rain and the roads are slick, she remembers another time, it was dark and wet, like this, she was skating home. She'd heard the sounds of sirens and thought nothing of it, this area you always got sirens. Suddenly a cop car had driven right at her, and she'd just managed to dive out of the way, the cops had driven straight down the road she was following. She shook it off until she got further down the road. flashing red and blue lights filled the street and paramedics were bundling a stretcher into an ambulance. Tor had recognized the person on the stretcher, Mum! she cried and ran forward. A big policeman had barred her way, she'd screamed at him and broken past him. Running to the stretcher, tears running down her face and mingling with the rainwater. Mum she'd shouted again, then she was crying onto Claire's shoulder.