In my dreams, I’m never exactly sure why I get the sequences I do: last night, for example, I saw billowing black smoke coming out from a roof cavity in a building that housed a large department store.

The smoke was acrid (yes, I could smell and taste it, which makes this a lucid dream) and finding the source of the smoke was a matter of airing out the premises without fully igniting the fire. I was able to track the vestiges of the smoke back to a ventilating shaft. But I woke from my dream before I was able to put out the fire.

So, here’s the thing: the last time I smelled smoke like that was the day (July 31, 2018) when our Ford Fiesta caught fire. It’s a smell you never forget.

But, my instinct says that this dream sequence has more to do with the Omicron variant, recently in the news. In other words, it’s a smoke screen. Maybe there isn’t a fire, after all.