My dreams have been debilitating. I was driving quickly through twisting turns and over embankments and narrowly missing tree trunks. In a panic, I sped faster. Having reached the top of the hill, I recognized that I had driven recklessly, so I put the car in reverse and began speeding down backwards. Headlights were flashing in my rear view mirror. I knew in a moment, as I was speeding backwards down this hill, that I was about to crash into a line of cars, when I quickly woke.

Fever dreams, I read online. Or when you're sick you're more likely to be awoken. Either way, it takes me twice as long, in the shower, to reconvene with reality and convince myself that I'm not losing my mind, feeling foggy and dizzy. "Will I lose my mind?" I ask myself. What is it to lose one's mind anyhow? To perceive reality differently from others? Yet I do have a fear of "losing touch" with my friends. Last night, for instance, at the bar, I had to tell myself to inquire upon Craig, Darren, Maria and Kate. I was not interested in them - I don't know why. I was not interested in the football game either. I was standing there adrift in a wash of bodies in black and gold. The man with the ten dollar bill approaching the cherry machine to win back his hundred moist, green dollars.

I stroll down the alley with a bag of crackers in my hand. It's a bit warmer today and the snow is melting from the roof tops and the tears of water are leaving little pock marks in the white patches. I approach a man who walks down the alley, his head down turned. What is he doing here? Is he some kind of mechanic? Does that account for his worn and dreary outfit. Anyhow, as I approach him, he looks up at me with his eyeglasses and mess of short blonde hair and smiles. He smiles! He smiles like he's my best goddamned friend and for a moment I'm lifted from my sickness, or the illness is forgotten anyhow, and I grant him with a "hello" and continue strolling down the alley with a bag of crackers in my hand. How wonderful.