"Mommy! Mommy! Quick!"

A flashlightlook under the bed: nothing green, scaly, large.

"It might have been there, I thought I saw it, I did!"

She goes back to bed. And wonders about how they'll pay rent, if that lump in her breast is a cancer, if he is screwing his secretary, whether the missiles poised over their heads are descending.

The infant sleeps, convinced that nothing he thinks is real. This way he will go through life until at age 41 he finds his wife screwing her secretary, buys a Porsche and begins to think of himself as "a real techno-Renaissance man, maybe even a metrosexual."

The bombs sleep ununnerved.