Mila didn’t say anything for a minute, then she got up and took my hand. It made me tear up slightly. I had changed jobs in mid 2021, and my new employer had allowed me to work from home, so I was not unemployed and didn’t have to live on my savings. It was a stretch that wound along the side of a hill, with a steep slope up on the left and an equally sharp drop on the right, both sides heavily forested with pine trees. I could see nothing, I could hardly breathe, and I couldn’t move or even feel my legs. Since then these dreams have become so frequent that I have cut my fingernails to the quick and taken to sleeping in T shirts with sleeves long enough to protect my upper arms. I absolutely couldn’t do it. I came awake in a way that, too, has become familiar; curled into a foetal position, my arms wrapped as tightly around myself as possible, my fingernails digging into the flesh of my upper arms hard enough to draw blood.
