November, 1996

I had a dream last night . . . right after sleep , I suppose--although I did not think to check the time. I could ask Cat if she did so when my struggles awoke her, but it was too far past her bedtime to expect much of a timeline from her perspective. I kept her up for some time--trying to explain the dream and why it was so important that I break free of it completely before again attempting sleep.

I don't dream frequently and almost never do I hear a noise like an arc of electricity cracking and popping as it attempted to bridge too wide a gap, or smell what surely must be ozone replacing the atmosphere--curling up my nose hairs with static. I told her it was like a tentacle, only not so solid--more of an extrusion, really, of blue-white plasm reaching out from some unknown place to penetrate an invisible, yet somehow visibly thick , flat transparent wall which glowed cherry-red right before falling away--stuck to the end of that blue-white thing by some unexplainable attraction--dropping away with the broken plug of that thing like a wall which had stood between me and it. I awoke trembling, seeking comfort.

Eventually we went to sleep, again. Until I woke some non-specific interval later, vomiting pain like an ice-pick inside my head, localized behind my eye-sockets. After all that, I choose to remain awake `till dawn.

Quanta Graviton