An unnamed writer who lives in the suburbs tends to his garden one Saturday and digs up an old tin box that has a note by someone pledging to kill himself if he does not get into a local country club. The writer then sees a copperhead and plans to shoot it, but his two dogs scare it off before he can. Later that day, he goes to the store, dances with a stranger in the bakery line, and stops to watch a parade on his way home, which he thinks is funny. When he returns home, his wife complains of her sadness. That evening, they go to the country club for dinner, where the writer stays until one o'clock drinking and telling stories by the bar. Back home, after watching some TV, the writer falls asleep and has a dream. He is on an island in the Pacific, and as he sits down at a restaurant, he speaks to the waiter seemingly knowing the language without ever learning it, only he utters a strange mantra that makes the island seem real. The next day, he goes to a church service for the first time in many years. The priest turns out to be drunk, and all the worshipers except the writer leave early. That night, the writer has another dream: he looks out the window of a cottage he used to rent on Nantucket and sees a priestly figure on the beach who calls up the same mantra as the previous night. After work on Monday, he has another dream about a Sunday afternoon family football game in the yard. After the winning play, the wives and daughters arrange a cheer, reciting the mantra that the writer heard two nights before. When he goes down to breakfast on Tuesday morning, he tells the mantra to his wife, who calls the doctor and has him sent away to rest in Florida. He has another dream on Tuesday night where he sees a woman in old-fashioned clothes. She begins to recite the mantra, but he wakes up before she finishes, hearing rain on the palm trees outside. He then begins to recite eight words in English that put him at ease.