“Can you change anything or is it static?” I asked the woman sitting next to me.

“Mmmmm, like what?” she replied, slightly drunk, her voice slurring a bit, but tone of voice suggested she hoped this wasn’t a lead in on me hitting on her.

“The stone, the guy, the scenery, maybe?” I was fascinated, not by the woman, but by the animation in the model. I had never seen anything like it.

“Yeah, you can,” another woman sat down beside the first, and she had what looked like a television remote. “Watch.”

The model on the tabletop showed a man, dressed in central casting Roman garb, toga, sandals, laurel leaves on his head, and he was pushing a huge bolder up a mountain slope. He would get to a certain point, the rock would slip, nearly crushing his body, and he would trudge downhill to start all over again. This was a three dimensional thing, the man about 200mm high, with the rock a bit taller than he. It looked realistic and you could hear him groaning, straining, then moaning when the rock slipped away.

The woman pressed a button and the rock was crystal, glowing, then she hit another and it was a diamond, another and it was burning, a ball of fire, and then again it was a dazzling star.

“And if you’re petty, like I am sometimes…” The man changed, the face was different.

“Petty?” I asked.

“That’s my ex.”

“Look up.”

I looked at her and she took my picture with the remote, and suddenly I was pushing the rock up the slope.

“Damn, that’s pretty good,” I swore.

“And I was so afraid the lightning would hit the building,” another woman was telling a story, and we paused to listen, “and we were so high up, it was like the one hundredth story and I was afraid if lightning broke the window we’d be sucked out and die.”

“You mean like in an airplane?” someone asked.

“Yeah, you know, something breaks a window in a jet, and everybody gets sucked out into the air,” the woman nodded.

Everyone started laughing at her, and I choked on my drink.

I woke up.