The sky is the colour of empty ink toner, rain falling as infrared tracer rounds, forty-five degrees to the vertical.
I cycle forward, through the glassy landscape. To my left, a lake; I know that on the opposite bank are some wooden cabins, where once I stayed.
The bar is half-full as I arrive, the decor is translucent hues and polarising filters.
There I see your final tweet, your last words for all I know. “I’ll be a little delayed :)” and in the replies, seven or eight mourners from timezones futureward.
The barman announces, “one free drink, I just got an extra –” and I don’t catch the rest.
“RIP :((^W^W^W;__;” I tap, and it projects in neon onto the jukebox wall so everyone around me can see the impotence of this sentiment.
“����� ��� ����� �� ����?” someone asks.
Then I’m in hypnogogic town again, and the dread entities are back. They are floating slabs, or tombstones, vast and austere. I know I will be crushed.
Only this time some distant neurons complete a handshake, closing a long elliptical circuit, measured in decades. Now I can push back – they move as my teeth do, the lower front incisors clicking against the upper. Phantom limbs of the sensory and motor homunculi, divergent and monstrous in the dark.
This is some kind of progress. I wonder if I can tame the others – the spikes and the dandelions and the neutron stars.
It’s 06:40 in London, which is 17:40 Australian Eastern Daylight Time, and you are still alive.