10PM
WHAT?!? 10 PM!! OH SHIT!! No wonder the streetlamps are on... How could I have done this? I woke up at 11AM, but the church bells only chimed 4 times. Sometimes they mess it up.. maybe it was really 4 PM, but 10PM? I've slept for . . for, for 18 hours! Wow. I must have really been exhausted. Ooo.. Jeff's gonna kill me. I bet he's called the lab four times already asking for me , Oi! and I was supposed to call Randolph this evening, and the transfers, they've been running for over 24 hours.. and we didn't exchange the catalyst in the anaerobic jars.. it'll be at least another day before I can get the references from the library and pick up the pictures from illustration,that manuscript's been sitting on my desk.. SHIT! I need to get a committee together, and call Tore, well, I can do that in two hours.. Per's going to be really pissed with me.
Is it really 10 PM? Maybe it's just 10 AM or I read it incorrectly. I bounce towards the edge of the mattress to look at the letters by the time. The clock stands firm in neon blue: 10:00, and indeed, a faint 'PM' in smaller letters by the 10:00 assures me that the darkness outside is not from stormy weather.
Maybe I'm dreaming this..
Could I be dreaming this?
How would I tell that I'm dreaming this?
I pinch my thighs.. pinch pinch. They pinch, but pinching never works. I cross my eyes. Everything goes blurry, but that's not unusual even when looking without looking. I peer through the gaps between the venetian blinds. The window frame secludes part of the streetlamp, but it clearly reflects the colors of the two large trees growing in the strip of soil by the alley, the red bricks of the buildings in the distance, red and green, maroon actually, but red enough.
If I *am* dreaming this, I can look at something and make it weird.
I look to the tree. The leaves fall in arrangements like the 'lotus' trees we used to climb in grade school, single leaves stemming from the sides of a passing branch on the way to its terminus. I see the green. I see the branch. The branch is black, not green, even as bathed in the metallic light of the streetlamp. I cross my eyes until all goes to blur except the branch and its opposing rows of leaves. The blur swirls counterclockwise in a purplish-blue vortex, the eye just above and to the right of the branch decomposing with leaves. The leaves merge to two, the leaves of a beech with yellow pulsing in their veins. I uncross my eyes, catching a last glimpse of the two leaves where many had been before
I *am* dreaming this.
I should be able to wake up.
I should be able to wake up and see what time it is. Perhaps it is not yet 10 PM.
How to wake up?....
It should be easy, waking up.
And the ceiling opens, pouring light into my room as the dark cover peels scurries before my eyes. I shrink in stature after a brief on-off-on-off-on-off of the lights while the light streams over the walls. Thumpa-thump they go, adjusting to the newly set intensity. Light set, the room halts from free fall with a mild jolt.
Wwhhhhhhwwhhhhhhhhhhh. It is the ceiling fan inside my head. It is most comfortable when on my back and my arms extending full reach to the sides. Kicking the array of covers off I easily bounce to standing. Movement requires no effort when so relaxed.
I don't have to focus my eyes to see.
11.30AM.
lynn@pharmdec.wustl.edu