I woke up at four, drenched in sweat and overcome with an intense fear. It was not a violent dream, but what I would call an authentic ghost dream. B+ and I were at my parents’, in my parents’ bedroom, next to the French door that leads to the garden. From the colors—the green reflections of the grass and the almost black-green of the leaves on the trees (trembling in the dream), I knew it was late in the day. There was a strange noise in the back of the house, near the hallway that leads to the living room. As I listened, I heard demented laughter that seemed to come from the kitchen. B+ was very frightened. She asked: “What was that?” “Ghosts,” I said. “That must be the laughter of a ghost, or someone who wants to frighten us.”

I went to the hallway, where, all of a sudden, night had fallen and it was very dark. I stretched out my arm—I think I actually did this in bed, while sleeping—to turn on the light.

A little while ago I told B+ my dream. I told her that when I turned on the light, I woke up. But I withheld the ending, which was truly the terrifying part for me:

When I turn the light on, I see my father coming in from the balcony. He looks tired and is much thinner than in real life. He has something under his arm that I think is a bottle of beer, dark beer. I think: Then, it isn’t him. (My father, to the best of my recollection, has never drunk dark beer.) Now the laughter is fainter. The man with the beer, who may or may not be my father, is impassive, as if he has not heard anything strange. He goes into a room and closes the door gently. I hear the click. And then, I wake up terrified, sweating, cold from the damp pajamas against my skin. I get up to change. I go back to bed and sleep without interruption until almost noon.

Thursday.

From the press: Social cleansing in Lake Atitlán. Armed groups (with names such as “Hitmen Without Borders”) have carried out thirty-six executions in the last six months. Among the victims: thieves, witch doctors, unfaithful couples, drug addicts, and corrupt government employees. These “cleansing” groups (someone should coin a new term for this concept of social cleansing) publish lists with the names of their next victims. Residents accuse the Ministry of Justice of negligence.