A French permanent resident for fifteen years. A missed court date. Within hours, he is in a wire cage in San Antonio, Texas ? built for six, holding twelve.

Inside, he meets Aleksander, who sees ashes where others see dust. Rami, who keeps a photograph of his daughter as though it were a shield. Ali, who knows which card will fall before it does. Kim, who distributes small pieces of colored paper before sleep and calls them dreams.

Then come the hallucinations. A flying carpet. Three figures from history, each carrying a confession. A coin, a pair of dice, a fragment of carved wood ? objects that should not exist, and yet persist.

By the time the cell door opens, the question is no longer when will I get out? It is: can I still trust what I see?

The Man with Confetti Dreams is a novel about the mind's desperate need to make sense of things ? and what it costs when that need goes unsatisfied. Part carceral realism, part hallucinatory fiction, part philosophical thriller, it follows one man's passage from physical imprisonment to something far harder to escape.

Approximately 53,000 words.