Dream: I haven't even been reading any Anne McCaffrey lately...

It’s dark, or almost dark, but the dusk is gritty and uncertain, darker in some places and less in others, in a way that makes me think it’s ash creating it, blocking out the sun – or the moon.

There is a woman with dark brown hair that curls around her shoulders, and she holds the standards. The flags themselves are rich brown and burgundy reds, and I can’t see what the emblem is. They’re on gold-and-wood poles, and she carries two.

There are dragons behind her, at least two, but I only see one at a time. That one is also deep red, dark like too much blood, and has the dart-shaped head, two long animal arms that end in claws, wings, a spike-ended tail, haunches. It sits over and on and around the castle, sometimes in front, sometimes behind, sometimes paying attention to us, sometimes looking beyond us. It’s inscrutable, but interesting to watch. I am not afraid of it.

When the dragons are vanquished, or vanish, I go inside the castle. It’s set down into the ground of the hill, like a bunker, but the front entrance opens onto a wide, cleared, inset park. The sides of the hill curve around the small park – a court, actually – like arms hugging it, lovingly, actually – comfortingly. It must be a good defense. Most of the castle is hidden from view from any other vantage point – this is the only real entrance, unless you can fly.

There are no moats at all. The castle entrance is parched, barely growing grass, and people walk over it all day.

I go into the castle, and it’s more high tech than most would expect – not outfitted with command consoles or anything military or laboratory-like, just not medieval – and in the back, on the upper level that juts out onto the rock of the mountain behind it, is a Salvation Army.

I go inside, with my brother and his wife, who become other couples as we’re in there, but are always together and happy and always out of my reach, and to the housewares section. I don’t need anything there, but I look.

I come across a plastic comforter bag half-filled with stuff, sold as a set or with additional things I’d choose to put in, and start to look through it.

There are tank tops, all in size S or XS, all my new size, and I take them out and fold them individually. One says “America First” on it, on a patch that would sit between my heart and throat. Another has a Chinese character that, if I wore it, would sit right above my belly button. It’s a black character set in a small peach-colored oval, on an otherwise green-and-olive swirl.

I don’t discriminate. All of the shirts are in the bag I chose, so I’ll keep them all, and I’ll add more from housewares – they’re tools, even the tea cups and saucers and plates, for deciding how to live and executing. There are other things in the bag, but I don’t get to check them before I wake up.

When I wake up, I have the sense that a vampire is standing over me, waiting to puncture my neck, and I let him.