We got home from Cape kind of late, I did the cat-piss-smell hunt and got irritable, but we all finally got to bed. Then somewhere between early and late this morning, I woke up what felt like about 10 times. Each time it was from the same ongoing dream. There was an investigation underway, into a recent murder. I knew they were looking for me, and I knew they would eventually find me. I couldn't see any way out of it. I was hazy on the details, but I knew I had done at least part of it. Had I actually killed her, or had I just buried the various body parts in various shallow pits around \{mom's front yard and the woods}? Either way, it wasn't going to go well for me. Each time I thought about it, I got the most sinking, dull, horrid depressed feeling. I couldn't imagine how I was going to survive it. Anxiety was rampant. Then I would wake up most of the way and feel relieved as I realized I hadn't done it; it wasn't real. This cycle happened over and over. Each time it took a moment to let the reality of the waking world settle in. I couldn't imagine why I had done it, but I could imagine how horrified and grief-stricken everyone was going to be, and how much they were going to hate me. During one of the dream portions, I was on the north side of the yard, but it was more rugged and steep, and the light was wan. There was somebody there. I felt that they were going to know. The fugitive period was already ending. I hadn't buried the parts very deep; it was going to be obvious and I had no explanation. But then the pit that had looked partially exposed turned out to be instead a well. A dry, empty, deep well lined by dusty limestone. I kicked a loose slab of stone into it, partially covering it up. Later, after I finally woke up for good, I thought about how it was the inversion of what Ann has described. How she has dreams of before, of being free and with us, and then she wakes up into the horrible, depressing reality of where her waking life is now. And I thought, that can't be right. Even for a heinous crime, this treatment of a fellow human being can't be right—to cast someone into perpetual soul-misery. There has to be a better way. This isn't right. (2015)