It was the best of dreams, it was the worst of dreams, the apex of wisdom, the nadir of foolishness, not the crux of belief but the brink of incredulity, it was his lightest moment, it was his darkest hour, the spring of hope, the winter of despair, and in it he saw everything before him and understood nothing at all—in short, the dream was so akin to the PEBAverse itself that it contained its own contradictions. He was sleeping, but he’d never felt more awake, more alert, more in tune than ever before in his life.

For a moment, he wondered if this was his death.

But when the desk sergeant walked into the room, he accepted that this was just another chapter, another installment, the latest episode in a life he had no control over.

“Enjoy your little party, Mr. Slummings?” the sergeant asked. When he nodded and started to say something, the sergeant cut him off. “Good, because now we need to take your prints and lock you in a cell.”

His face fell. “But I thought … I mean, what was … Wasn’t it all just, you know?”

“A hoax, a gag, a put on, a send up, a practical joke?”

“Yes.”

“No.” 

And with that, the sergeant dragged Slummings out of the interrogation room and across the hall where his thumbs and fingers were first pressed into the black ink of a tiny pad and then rolled across the formal records sheet that had his name typed at the top. He was shoved against a wall and asked to turn left, then right, while a flashbulb blinded him three times. Finally, his belt and shoe laces were removed and he was marched down the hall, through a security gate, and into the cold cement corridor of the prisoner’s cells.

“But I didn’t—”

“Save it, Mac,” the gruff voice of some officer not the desk sergeant said. “It’s whatcha all say.”

The gruff officer unlocked a cell door and shoved Slummings inside. Before he could slam the door shut, Slummings cried out, “What am I being held for?”

The door slammed. Then the voice on the other side said, “Murder.”

“But I didn’t kill David Goode!”

Slummings’ voice was drowned out by the rhythmic echo of the officer’s boots marching down the hallway. When the sound faded into silence, Taffy Slummings was left only with his thoughts and the fleeting images of a dream he would have every night of the long, disappointing season of the baseball club he now owned.