There’s a part of my brain writing space opera: I wake, baffled, as vast plots unfold and civilizations are reduced to cinders.  A world oblivious begins to shatter: Our front porch railing  disappears with an electric crackle,  our nasty neighbors vanish,   transported to another dimension.  The space armada lands at Central and Unser. We’re all captives now.  Our alien jailers nowhere to be seen, but control all the boundaries.  Playgrounds and churches are off-limits, we live in techno corrals and we are part of a new commerce. But as hero, I can be subversive, rally resistance. Characters spring out of night-woven places I cannot access waking—complex plots lie buried here, chapters titled, pages numbered and indexed. Sequels in the making. My therapist would rather have me relate dreams of dad and unfinished term papers. But I’d like to pull just a couple of threads out into the dawn.