My sleep last night was extremely restless and full of nightmares, concluding with a dream that yanked me awake. In that dream I was walking along a wooded bluff above a pebbled beach with a companion. We were discussing the several wrecked buildings that were scattered along the ridge. Apparently I recalled a time when the mossy cul de sac had been the center of a vibrant nightlife, but the lights were long gone.

As we walked down a path leading to the strand, we came across a huge, partially completed building which had never been finished due to an obvious arson. As we looked at it, we were jolted by terrifying screams from the beach below. Two small children clutched each other and sobbed in terror, lying prone and rolled away from the source of their terror.

Behind them, a construction crew worked frantically to free a coworker who was lying, partially crushed, under a collapsed concrete wall. It was his screams that we’d heard up the embankment.