But this time, scraps of images swirled in his fogged brain, a hurricane rush of faces, a sense of squirming, worms under pressure—dreaming . He could remember the dream. His heart started to pound. He had to tell Dr. Patel about his breakthrough. He groped for the towel dispenser, wiped off his hands, his feet, and sat up. The plastic sheet covering his body crackled as he peeled it away from his blood-sticky skin. Beside him, Regina stirred. He’d almost forgotten she was there. He turned, afraid he’d woken her, but no: she was still sound asleep. She fidgeted, eyes moving under their lids, perhaps in muted reaction to a dream of her own, one she’d never remember. She lay naked between plastic sheets just as he had, slats of moonlight groping through the blinds to stripe her contours, long curvy torso and short legs—and at that moment, the Blessings touched her. Her flesh turned ink black beneath the sheet as blood welled from every pore of her skin. When she finally woke she would be covered head to toe, just as he was.
