25
I wake to a sudden weight that lands on my chest. Something has sprung on me and seized me. In the darkness, I shout and push, feeling immediate resistance. Then I thrust my hands out, flinging whatever’s on me to the floor by the window. I squint and I’m sure I can make out some shadowy form. More and more, consciousness takes hold. The last tendrils of sleep lose their grip on me. All the typical rationalizations kick in and, as they kick in, whatever I’m seeing fades. A dream. A dream. A dream. So cliché, but it’s the easy out, and the simplest way to classify what happened as…
24
I lay awake, following the whirlpool of thoughts deeper into my self-consciousness. At first, it was trepidation about the anxiousness exploding into a panic attack. I existed on this brink that represented this horrible danger. Beyond it, I didn’t know what else there was. Madness, maybe. Or that’s what I thought when I was younger and naïve. Then it was worrying about possible health issues. Like that small lump that appeared on my hip following a game of tennis when I was just sixteen. Cancer, maybe? That was a weekend of worry, until my GP told me it was some fatty deposit. There were other things that cropped up. Like,…