My electric guitar developed a crack, right down the middle and into the neck, that would require extensive repair from the luthier himself, if it was salvageable at all. We were talking about playing out after a long layoff for some reason. There were no gigs though, or maybe one, we were having trouble remembering.

Dream about Jay dying. He was entering various psychological and emotional states: dementia, distress.

The apartment was full of relatives, many of them distant. We were all preparing to go on a trip, a kind of elaborate picnic. S. had been cooking for it. Towering dishes were now arrayed on the counters, waiting to be packed away. One pasta dish was piled high in what appeared to be a flowerpot. I emerged from the bedroom in my robe, sheepish at having overslept, eager to lend a hand.

A movie about modern-day pirates who abduct people to become their slaves. One gets free and kills his captor. Toward the end of the movie an escapee gets clobbered over the head and another is recaptured to be another pirate’s slave.

I met up with P.C. and he wanted to see a Peter Sellers movie. I texted Sara to tell her I’d gone out with him. We were joined by G.C. and an academic friend of his. The theater was tiny, and it was unclear whether we’d find seats.

Later I was in a remote village in a dangerous, war-torn country, maybe Afghanistan. I observed the peoples’ rituals. They gathered in the square whenever important announcements or decisions had to be made. I came with them, sitting on the periphery. A cook, an expat from Europe somewhere, smoked a hand-rolled cigarette, and I was surprised that doing so was not a hanging offense.

A rich political operative was being investigated for corruption. He went on the run. We saw him surveilled from above, from a spy drone, as he enjoyed undeserved luxury. He bathed in the shallow surf of a pristine beach at dusk. The Saudi government had provided his towels. They were visible in a motorboat parked in the sand, big, soft, blue towels folded and lined up on their sides.

A reporter had been working on a story about Trump and got abducted. He was held in a compound run by Trump associates. Eventually he escaped, or was set free.