“That night, Sebastian dreamed that his own hair was longer, itching, twirled together. In the dream, he scratched his head with his left hand, trying to get rid of the feeling that he was someone else. In his right hand, he could feel the weight of an encased acoustic guitar. Sebastian noticed that the guitar case was the one his father had carried around after he’d returned from Vietnam. It was hand-painted with bleeding hearts and flowers shooting from guns—everything half-beautiful and half-violent, the detail work half-original and half-clichéd. He dropped it to the ground, and the case opened when it hit the pavement. The guitar flew onto the road, and a car ran it over, strewing splintered wood across lanes of traffic. Sebastian bent down to pick up some of the pieces. He salvaged the strings rather than the wood, the tension rather than the form. Hearing the sound of a motor, Sebastian looked up to see a car headed toward him. Sebastian dropped the guitar strings so he could lift his middle fingers. He stared down the vehicle, unblinking as the headlights approached, until finally, with the force of his conscious mind, he woke up and opened his eyes.”