16.

Oh, there it goes in my dreams, floating along, the head of Henry Kissinger, tall as a five-story building, floating sixty feet overhead, filled with gas, a huge Macy’s balloon, floating over the marching soldiers. In their gray camouflage uniforms in the gray air, a moving mass.

Thousands of men, marching, marching, marching.

“Go to your left, your right, your left.”

The reverberating clump of all those boots hitting the ground in unison.

The giant, floating head of Henry Kissinger turning slowly back and forth, his eyeglass lenses becoming opaque when the light hits them.

Millions of men beneath him, marching, marching, marching.

Clump. Clump. Clump.

“Go to your left, your right, your left,” marching, marching.

The head of Henry Kissinger nodding.

Clump. Clump. Clump.

He turns to me and smiles, Henry Kissinger does. His teeth are sharp like saw teeth. Brilliant white saw teeth.

Sehr schön, nicht wahr?”

Beautiful, isn’t it?

Der Krieg ist die Wahrheit.”

War is the truth.

His voice is like the Arctic wind.

Why is he speaking in German? But then I remember. He is, in fact, German.

The head floats along, nodding, above the marching soldiers.

Clump. Clump. Clump.

The opaque eyes looking in the distance, looking suddenly at me. His face suddenly in front of me, his mouth open, his teeth like a spiked fence, beyond it a dragon howling, hissing fire, howling.

Clump. Clump. Clump.

Millions and millions and millions of men, marching, marching, marching.