Dante and I wake each other up when the other one is having a bad dream. He has saved me from enduring the full length of many nightmares. I can only guess what scary things sometimes appear in his head when he is not awake. When this does come to pass, it is his little murmurs and twitching feet that lead me to believe he is distressed in some way, and so I rouse him and stroke his back to calm him down. Fortunately this does not occur often, and I am certain I have many more nightmares than him by orders of magnitude, probably because I am cursed with a cocktail of many uniquely human psychological ailments, first and foremost being that of memory and regret. Dante is blessed with a narrower experience and so his fears are of a different sort. As I write this, he is snoring on my lap, and I am lying here in the dark waiting for this melatonin to drag me under. I reckon at least one of us will sleep peacefully tonight. And should I find myself being chased by the faceless phantoms who wait for me in dreams, I know I can count on Dante waking me up at 7 am to be fed. Hah!

Well . . . good-night! ☆