He worked the night shift and returned as the sun was rising, and there was always immense hope in that moment, though it didn’t last. Sleeping in the daylight seemed to produce fewer dreams and for that he was thankful. One day after work he stopped at a travel agency and bought a ticket for Hanoi, through Bangkok. He didn’t tell anyone about this plan, and if he’d been asked he wouldn’t have been able to explain himself. He was feeling less and less connected to the world around him, and there were times when he would rise from his seat by the stove and say something just to hear the sound of a voice, and he would not recognize his own voice. Every so often he pulled out the airline ticket and studied it as if it were a precious relic, or as if it might offer him some revelation. Two days before the flight he cashed in the ticket and lost several hundred dollars on the transaction.Sometimes he went down into the Valley and drank at a small bar close to the highway. One Saturday night he met a woman named Jill.
