The nightmare was always the same: a distorted reflection of reality, perverted by the dream, which tormented him. He hated every second it lasted: He was hiding outside the charred ruins of his Cape Cod summer home, under a tattered tarp that hid his figure, waiting for the killer who had been stalking him for weeks. The initial threat—"Kill yourself or an innocent man will die"—had become him or me. The semi-automatic pistol burned in his hand. While waiting in hiding, in the dream he saw the murderer maneuvering in the middle of the night gloom, just as it had happened in real life five years ago. I turned my back on him. He raised the gun. But when the murderer turned abruptly, holding a gun, the dream abandoned reality and history. In that sudden nightmare, first his glasses fogged up and the silhouette of the murderer became blurred, until it merged with the darkness. Then his gun jammed. It was as if his finger had frozen on a stuck trigger, and no matter how hard he pulled again and again, the gun wouldn't fire. And then the gun disintegrated in his hand and turned into a pile of useless fragments that fell at his feet. In the dream he saw the murderer pointing his gun at him. And then he would scream: “That's not right! "That's not how it happened!"