My recent dreams have terrified me. “Push!” I shout and the baby crawls out on its own acephalous, absolutely no head, and in its neck a single eye that opens and blinks. Cut to my new life with Mo on the border between Israel and the Occupied Territories. Hundreds of us live in a large house and then the bombers come. Missiles whistling down one after another, bodies in the air—and when it appears to be over a full passenger jet crashes straight into the surviving crowd. Then I'm back in Brooklyn and my doctor puts her hand straight through the hole in my stomach.
I try not to borrow trouble, because I have faith that in time trouble will show up and knock gently on the door. Mostly by luck I live a life of extraordinary privilege, which to me means that I have health insurance, opportunities, very little debt, and neither I nor my fiancée are threatened by an invading army. But the sleep brain wants to give me fits. I have to finish these projects.