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…
12
I wake to somebody bouncing on my bed by my right ear – I hear the springs of the mattress recoil; feel the depression of the mattress; and am startled by the unexpectedness of it all. They bounce again around the middle of the bed, and one final time at the end of the bed, like they’re working their way down a hopscotch grid. And that’s it. Done. It happens in the time it takes me to wake, so I’m playing catch-up on processing all this. “Who’s there?” I bark. There’s no response. I see nothing. But my heart thumps. It’s night – early morning. Who the hell would bounce…