“I’m going to chase you with a pack of trained dogs,” he said menacingly.

As the motorcycle roared and the dogs yelped, I sighed wearily and opened my eyes to the darkness. This dream could only mean that I’ve not yet escaped. However often I think of you during my waking hours, these weird fantasies mock…”

—

I stayed up all night in the garden, alone in the darkness with the stars shining overhead in the dome. I asked them when my desires would be fulfilled, and shouting so that the atoms of the cypress tree shook, reprimanded both everything and nothingness.

“I want to see,” I said, gazing at one of the stars.

“Then look,” it whispered.

I looked and found only emptiness. This is not the vision I’ve yearned to see.

“Look,” it whispered.

The darkness lifted from the figure of a naked man. He was savage in appearance with shoulder-length hair and held a stone club in readiness to fight. Suddenly a wild beast sprang upon him. It was an unrecognizable species; though it resembled a crocodile, it stood on four legs and had the face of a bull. A bloody battle ensued between them, but in the end the beast was vanquished and the man staggered away. Blood splotched his face and chest and flowed from his arms, yet pain did not prevent him from smiling.

But this is not the image I’ve yearned to see, as you well know.

“Look,” it whispered.

The darkness faded, revealing an open space in the forest at the bottom of a mountain. Mountain men armed with stones rushed into the clearing and were opposed by men of the forest, equally fierce, equally ready for the kill. They fought ferociously. The flowing blood and frenzied screams so frightened the wild animals that they fled for refuge in the canals, in the treetops, and up the mountain. Eventually the forest men were routed, killed, or taken prisoner, and the mountain men made merry.

Nor is this the image I’ve yearned to see.

“Look,” it whispered.