i'm sitting in a tree in a public park in russia somewhere, and i'm looking down at a huge black roulette wheel, which is full of doves. there are couples walking in the park, an old man sitting on a bench...there is a bright star next to the sun. suddenly the wheel begins to spin and the doves fly up to join the star. as though the birds had been blocking my view, i can now see through the wheel to the mechanisms that turn it. working the devices that turn the wheel is a great brownish monster remarkably similar in form to classical representations of grendel (from _beowulf_). i hear shouting, and i awake...cold and slightly damaged, lying on the bathroom floor, for reasons i cannot recollect.