Jim began to snore — soft and blubbery at first, then a long rasp, then a stronger one, then a half-dozen horrible ones like the last water sucking down the plug-hole of a bathtub, then the same with more power to it, and some big coughs and snorts flung in, the way a cow does that is choking to death; and when the person has got to that point he is at his level best, and can wake up a man that is in the next block with a dipperful of laudanum in him but can't wake himself up although all that awful noise of his ain't but three inches from his own ears. —Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Abroad

Could there be anything more delightful than Carmel and the Monterey Peninsula at Thanksgiving? My cousins by marriage have a new place there, within easy reach of bird sanctuaries and wildlife refuges, and the light has to be experienced to be believed. Excited at the thought of an early start to see the frolicsome otters and seals, my wife and I retired early to the pullout bed in the open-plan living room, and awoke to dappled sunlight and the chatter of woodpeckers and squirrels. I could smell the coffee and taste, in anticipation, the bacon and eggs. But there was also a very slight something else hanging in the atmosphere...

"So you slept well?" remarked my male cousin by marriage, making it very slightly more a statement than a question. "Yes," I replied, as if not noticing this distinction, remembering to add politely, "And you?" "Oh, fine, fine," he said. "Until I had to get up and use the bathroom at about 3.00 A.M." And what, I wanted to know, had changed things at that stage? "Oh, nothing much," he responded, as a good host should. "Except that it was LIKE THE GREEN ZONE in here, and all over the house." Catching my slightly awkward look in response to this, my dear wife gave me a reassuring if somewhat weak smile and said, "Actually darling, the snores were rather loud this time."

Now, this gentle woman has been with me for almost 20 years, and has heard every kind of snore from the soothing whistle to the distant yodel to the sound of a hippo's trapped foot being pulled repeatedly out of a lake of mud. It is very seldom indeed that she complains, sound sleeper that she is. But here, unmistakably, was another one of those milestone moments of which I will have more to tell you. And the thing was, my cherished relatives thought that by mentioning the Green Zone they were being funny or hyperbolic. But I, sadly, knew better. I had already been in the world's noisiest place and had very nearly been ignominiously expelled and deported from it.

It was the summer of 2003 and the city of Baghdad could fairly be described as being in a generally sleepless condition. Bang after bang and roar of sound after roar of sound filled the night, mingling the vicious explosions of Al Qaeda and the dethroned Baathists with the retaliatory whomps of the coalition and the awful moans and thuds of every kind of siren and chopper. On a press trip with some pretty leathery war correspondents, I had been quartered in one of Saddam Hussein's old palaces near the ghastly Abu Ghraib prison, and after an exhausting and indeed harrowing day had spread a sleeping bag on the floor with the rest of them and, as the Bard says, knit up the raveled sleeve of care by submitting to tired nature's sweet restorer. I woke to a humid morning mist coming off the River Tigris, and to a set of eyes that looked uncomfortably like the ranged barrels of a firing squad. These eyes, belonging to my comrades and traveling companions, were red. They looked as if they resented the deep and blameless repose that I had been enjoying. They looked, in fact, a bit more than resentful. "You could have been killed last night," said the military guard laconically as I passed him on my way for a shave. "I think they sort of discussed it." So it was this — my one-man nocturnal recital — that was rated as more disturbing than anything the Iraq war could throw at my friends and protectors.