He’s been dreaming too much, confronting life in the unconscious where nothing’s held back. He doesn’t like it. His wife’s expecting. Their third and the source of his dreams. In the company of a stranger in shadow, he might spill his true guts. He doesn’t want the child. With the infant in his arms, squirming, eyes like polished marbles, he would fall in love. He knows it. But now it’s getting harder to breathe. Wasn’t long after she’d told him that he noticed the involuntary markers of panic. The muscles that deal in dollars were first. The hands counting money, the fingers navigating him thru online banking would twitch. And with every TV ad promising financial freedom, that spasm at the temple got harder to hide. She must have noticed. Did she? Does she have these thoughts herself? How the monstrous mouth of a household of five will devour a salary for three?