He keeps having the same nightmare where his teeth fragment into little enamel slivers and spill out of his mouth to the tiled floor with little clicking sounds. He is plagued by the idea that they must be collected. But instead of dropping to his knees and chasing them as they scatter like beads of mercury, he reaches into his mouth and feels the painless, gaping holes in his gums. He works four fingertips into four separate depressions; there is a slight sensation of suction. Just as he gets up to the second knuckle of each finger, he wakes with a jolt, a thick film of drying saliva on his lips.

This has been happening for two weeks. He sleeps all night, but the sleep is far from restful. He feels mentally emaciated. This is the term he uses when describing the exhaustion to friends: mentally emaciated.

At a family gathering, his older brother sees the bruised color under his eyes and offers him a wry, "Been burning the candle at both ends?" His mother thinks he needs to get to bed earlier. His aunt tells him he should eat more fruit. His uncle takes him out behind the unused tool shed and shares a thin-rolled joint with him, telling him between weak coughs that this will set him right. He doesn't think any of them have really understood the sheer horror of his dream, the feeling of his fingers being drawn up into his gums, the sight of his splintered teeth disappearing into nooks and under counters.

On the subway, he relates the nightmare to his friend Mary. The car is nearly empty, except for an elderly couple huddled together at the opposite end and a young man in sweats standing by the door. He nudges a dried circle of gum with the toe of his shoe as he speaks. He feels like he's swimming in humidity, even though it's November. There is the lingering smell of warm metal.

Mary sits close to him; her hair brushes his left shoulder. She keeps her purse firmly planted in her lap, her right knee pressed against him. She's listening too intently, he thinks, to really be hearing the story. She smells like sugared roses. He can hear the way she's gently chewing her gum. He finds all of this distracting. He knows that if he just tells the story of the nightmare enough times, he will understand what it means.

He will take away its power.