Enough dreams, I think, confident that I will now sleep smoothly until daybreak. But I am wrong, because more is in store. This time, not a standard nightmare but a prophetic dream, an anomaly I would far prefer not to encounter.
        Although I occasionally suffer from premonitions, it has never has never been my ambition to be a prophet. I am, after all, a serious middle-aged business manager, not a wild-eyed shaman with dirty fingernails and demented hair. I am a family man with responsibilities not just to my own household but to the Udamana clan as a whole. I have no objection to ritual and ceremonies, but the ceremony I like best is the eating of my lunch, and my idea of a satisfying ritual is to check my e-mail.
        If you invited me to satisfy one unfulfilled ambition, then my choice would not be to learn how to parse dreams, manipulate shadows and conjure voices from the silent stones. I would not choose to learn how to interpret the layout of a chicken's entrails or how to breach through to the realms of the gods by deflowering a gasping virgin. Rather, I would prefer to learn how to play golf.
        Even so.
        Despite the fact that my natural inclinations are conservative, in the sense that I would prefer today to be as much like yesterday as possible, I have on three separate occasions disturbed the ordered nature of my universe by indulging in prophetic dreams, which can be distinguished from ordinary premonitions by, above all else, their crystal clarity.
        The first of these prophetic dreams foretold my mother's death, which came to pass, horribly. I cannot shake the guilt that I feel about that, because I tend to believe, at least in part, that prophecy is an admission of responsibility. Yet this is nonsense. Once I was beyond the age of childish tantrums, no part of me ever wished my mother dead. And, although my mother was murdered, her death was, in a sense, self-inflicted.
        Not wishing to inflict a similar death upon myself, I have kept my prophetic power (if that's what it is) strictly to myself. I have never said anything to anyone about that first dream, the one which was fulfilled, the one in which my mother was murdered.
        Nor have I spoken of the second dream, the one which has not yet achieved its destiny. My second prophetic dream told me that I would one day meet with the gorgel and would escape unscathed. It is comforting to think that, if there is truth in prophecy, then I am guaranteed to live at least until the day on which I do meet the gorgel.
        As for the third dream, there has as yet been no time to speak of it to anyone, since it is from this dream that I have just awakened.
        I dream often, but a prophetic dream is different from other nocturnal episodes. A prophetic dream is as lucid as quartz, and the memory of it persists without corruption, forever.
        In this dream, the most recent of my prophetic dreams, Chelooza came to me while I was murdering something in the garden. What was I murdering? I have no idea. But the voices of the innocent cried out against me as I slaughtered them. In my dream, I stood guilty of a pogrom against an entire nation, as if I were not myself but someone monstrous, a demonic figure in the mold of the evil dictator of Rathnog Carta. Then, in my dream, while I was thus engaged in genocide, Chelooza spoke to me.
        "He will kill you," said Chelooza. "He will murder you dead. Unless she gets you first."
        It is not clear to me what this dream is supposed to mean. The two earlier dreams, the one about my mother's murder and the one predicting my own meeting with the gorgel, were clear from the start. In both cases, the surface meaning was, obviously, the intended truth.
        But, in the case of this third dream, a certain amount of interpretation would seem to be needed. After all, the surface meaning is nonsensical. I am not the sort of person who gets murdered. Well. I will have to think about this and see if I can figure out the intended meaning of the dream.
        What time is it? I seek beneath my pillow for my cellphone, but it is not there. What could possibly have happened to it? As I grope around for it, Iola moans in her sleep. I freeze. Have I woken her up? If there's one thing Iola can't stand, it's being woken up in the middle of the night. (That, I think, is the main reason why we stopped at two children. If they had not been twins, we would probably have stopped at one.)
        Iola snorts, snores. Still asleep, then. Apart from her gentle snoring, there is silence. No sounds of traffic, no overhead airplanes, no night insects. If it were not for Iola's snoring, I would believe myself stone deaf. I listen for Melshu's louder, more penetrating snoring, the assault so fierce that the floorboards are no defense against it. But, from the master bedroom below, no sounds arise to the bedroom secondary where we sleep.
        Melshu was loud enough earlier, so what has happened? Could he possibly be dead? At last?
        An unworthy thought. I wish I could unthink it. It is wrong to think of a human being as nothing more than an encumbrance, and I am troubled by this treason against the mandatory sentiments of family life. Even though Melshu is exactly that. An encumbrance.
        Now. The cellphone. Where is it?
        Logic commands my fingertips to explore the floor where they find the cellphone. Holding the phone down near the floor level, so the light will not awaken Iola, I unfold it then key it into life. It's difficult to read the itty bitty little numerals on the matchbox-sized display. I snake forward, aiming to lean down, and my weight starts slithering, and I grab at the sheet. But it's no use.
        I hit the floor with an ignominious thump. I can't believe that this has happened. How could I possibly go fall out of bed? Anyway, I have. So what time is it? Lying on the floor in a tangle of bedding, I can at last see the time. It's 02:53. Almost three in the morning. Any e-mail? No, not unless you count two advertisements for loan refinancing and one for sheepskin car seat covers.
        If possible, I never send or receive e-mail by cellphone because I hate working with that ridiculously small screen. Even so, I do end up getting billed for a certain amount of incoming advertising e-mail. I wish to hell the phone company's spam filtering software would work as advertized.
        I switch off the phone and stand up. A little dizzy in the darkness. A blood pressure problem? Or lack of sleep? Or is it a recurrence of the old inner ear infection? I hope not. I've gone the last twenty years without enduring that. I can't afford to be laid up in bed feeling helplessly seasick, not now, not when I'm in the middle of negotiations with the Merlercians.
        Cautiously, I kneel down until the dizziness passes. Then I start replacing the bedding on my side of the bed. It's ridiculous, this business of using two single sheets on a double bed, but, until Melshu's dead, what else can we do?
        It's quite crazy, this business of sharing the house with an ancient ancestor who goes into a psychotic frenzy if anyone other than himself uses double bed sheets. It's not just shameful but embarrassingly absurd. But there seems to be no way to outmaneuver the Ancient One. When it comes to the use of bedding, Melshu's unshakable knowledge of what's going on seems to be a firm proof of the existence of psychic powers.
        Having repaired the bed, I check the house, making sure that the twins are home asleep, and making sure that all the doors are properly locked. Then, all done, the house confirmed safe, I climb into bed, and my hand touches Iola's in the darkness.
        "Lover," says Iola, speaking in her sleep.
        And the word electrifies me. Is the word "lover" an accusation? Could Iola possibly have found out? And, if so, could Iola be the "she" who may get to kill me? Or is it the case that Iola has a lover? Is she in a conspiracy with someone?
        For a moment, my mind gives way to a whirl of uncensored melodrama. Then common sense kicks in.
        "Nonsense," I say.
        The thought of Iola having a secret lover is completely nonsensical. In fact, the absurdity of the notion amuses me. I smile in the darkness, and, very soon, drift back into sleep. But the prophetic dream stays with me, and I wake with Chelooza's words in my head.
        "He will kill you. He will murder you dead. Unless she gets you first."