Last night was bad. I dreamed I was an Army medic. My unit was trapped in a big, deep, muddy pit. The enemy sur­rounded us on all sides, shoot­ing down into the pit, pick­ing off my com­rades like fish in a bar­rel. I went from wounded sol­dier to wounded sol­dier try­ing to help, lack­ing any sup­plies what­so­ever — not so much as an aspirin or a band aid. My friends were get­ting limbs and faces blown off. I couldn’t help them. I couldn’t shoot back, either. I was unarmed.

I woke up sev­eral times. Each time, I lay in bed for a few min­utes and tried to think about some­thing more pleas­ant. But as soon as I closed my eyes, the bat­tle in the pit would resume, more hor­ri­ble than ever. At a cer­tain point, I saw that the sol­diers on both sides were wear­ing the same uni­form. The fight wasn’t between two oppos­ing forces, but rather dif­fer­ent fac­tions of the same army. The con­fu­sion was ter­ri­ble. Some­how I moved around freely with­out get­ting hit. I guess it was my fate to witness.

When the alarm went off, I told my wife about it. “You have the most lit­eral dreams,” she said, mean­ing they’re sel­dom hard to ana­lyze. It’s true. Nor are they espe­cially fan­ci­ful; my night­time dreams almost always have a plau­si­ble qual­ity (unlike my day­dreams, I might add). “Did any­thing hap­pen yes­ter­day that you felt help­less to change?” she asked. “Only every­thing,” I answered, “but that’s noth­ing new.”

I think I’m going to prac­tice my horn all day.