I don’t feel well today, and I meant to get over it this morning and to be at work by noon. I couldn’t, as it turns out, and so I am home for the day.

Dreaming was not therapeutic.

I was at home with my dad, and family and friends. The place and the people were not from my memory, but I loved them as though they were real.

There was a tiny room, perhaps mine, with peeling paint and plaster. I tried to find where the water was coming from, but it eluded me. It was unreal.

I was overcome by a terrible, wrenching anguish that worsened with time, and I could not stop crying. I needed comfort, and there was none. My father in the dream mocked me, insulted me, treated me with contempt, and finally ignored me as though I were not there. So did everyone else. My anguish only deepened, and with it their contempt for me. I was no longer human, and there was no end in sight.

When I finally woke up out of this nightmare, I could not face another one. Yet this is not much better.