19
I wake to the sight of an old woman standing over me. She’s a crone, twisted and ancient and alien, a disruption of my reality that lasts a millisecond, but it’s a millisecond that stretches so tortuously over my surprise that I’m able to process so much. It’s seven years ago. I’ve been sent home from work for a few days because I have a bad cold and, after waking around my usual time, have stayed in bed and tried to catch up on sleep. But light’s busting in from the window, and the blinds aren’t that effective. Come the morning, I know about it. Opening my eyes, seeing her,…
17
I dream again I’m running. There is a freedom in being so unencumbered, in feeling nothing but the speed of zipping through the world with an abandon I wouldn’t be able to duplicate in life, even if my right leg was still capable. This is all that’s important now: the motion. I revel in the velocity. There’s very little awareness of my surrounds, but it’s open terrain. Concrete pavements so that I’m thinking civilization but, distantly, mountains also. I don’t think there are any other people here with me either. I think this place has been built just for me, and for just this purpose. Running. If I could, I…