I had a dream of a little girl standing in my kitchen. She was barely four and had long dark hair in plaits, and had a little dress on. I helped her open a pickle jar, and that was when the dream faded away into the ugly black blue of two o'clock AM.

There are things called harbingers which I have started to believe in, foreshadowing in life–cracks in the curtain that show bits and scribbles of the future. I also have begun to believe that all things have meaning and are connected. If so, I must understand the significance of the pickle jar.