I have a dream, sometimes. It’s of a great stone wall that towers over everything, though in this dream “everything” is but the cracked landscape behind me. Nothing of import lives in that barrenness. But nothing at all lives near this wall.

It’s just me. And the wind, and the dirt that hears the wind whisper in a language I can’t speak.

A feel of vastness, and life—danger. I perceive danger beyond the wall.

The dream makes me cry because I know that the wall is my protection, and everything across it is what makes me want to live.