I dreamed about a conversation between Mark Twain and me. We sat across a table from one another. There wasn’t enough to drink and the service was terrible. We looked into each other’s terrible eyes. Saw the hatred, the disappointment, defeat, and the rage and the devouring need to put it all on paper for no reason other than the belief in the power of paper. And we knew we had lost. So we said nothing. And we smoked. Then there were cats and we smoked more happily.