I know, I said, “At the time,” which is one of those literary allusions that actually drive me batty in books.\u00a0 It’s like a warning, a “NO OUTLET” sign just before the cul-de-sac, and it really doesn’t flow with anything but a retrospective journal-like piece.<\/p>\n
Ahem.<\/p>\n
At the time, I figured I just didn’t see her.\u00a0 Totally true for the reasons why I didn’t panic and managed just to fall asleep.\u00a0 I won’t say I had anything but a restless night – those dreams were surreal even for me.\u00a0 I don’t know what your dreaming is like, but mine is often throwing in lots of little visual puns I don’t get until I’m considering them sometime later.\u00a0 I also feel (despite the research to the contrary) that I remember most of them.\u00a0 I know it’s kind of boastful, or whatever the psychological disorder is that makes you think that rules just don’t apply (narcissisum?) to you, but it might really be linked to being a practitioner.\u00a0 Memory as a form of Will has a long history – I really think that not being able to remember a number because you’re used to looking it up in a cellphone would be a great example of the loss of Will in the modern age.<\/p>\n
At the time, it was worthy of mention.\u00a0 I don’t have a huge place – there’s the bedroom, the bath that connects from it, the bit of a hallway, a kitchen that kind of has room for one person, maybe two if they’re friendly and which connects to the other side of the bathroom, and then the front room where I use the bookshelves as a homemade cubicle divider for my office area.<\/p>\n
From my corner of the bed, I can see in a diagonal line to the computer.\u00a0 If both doors are open, I can see into the kitchen, too.\u00a0 I never unlock the kitchen-side, so I wouldn’t have been able to tell.\u00a0 She wasn’t within the diagonal, so I presumed maybe she’d gotten up and maybe taken a chance to check out the inventory of my pantry.<\/p>\n
But it was worthy of mention in that way your brain suddenly stops and says, “Remember this.”\u00a0 Remember this moment, because, like so many others, this is part of your life.<\/p>\n
You have guessed that she wasn’t there when I woke up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I woke up in a panic, maybe a bit of a sweat.\u00a0 The sky was dark, not in that, “It’s still before dawn,” sense, but in that oppressive, “The sun is obscured,” sense.\u00a0 We’ve had a lot of rain this summer, but it was more than that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I didn’t move for a moment.\u00a0 I extended my feelings, more.\u00a0 It’s an exercise that you can learn regardless of your abilities.\u00a0 You stay quiet for a moment, sensitive, opening up all of those blocks you put up against the relentless pressure of everyday life.\u00a0 It can be much more to a practitioner, but even for me, I was just checking to see what was wrong.<\/p>\n
I was checking to see if I (or anyone else) had left open a door.<\/p>\n
Silence.\u00a0 The beating of my own heart as the adrenaline subsided.\u00a0 I could feel that the sheets were slightly damp, so bleepin’ dirty words, I would have to do more laundry.\u00a0 My undershirt stuck to me as well, and we will leave the unmentionables unmentioned.\u00a0 A faint whir from the fan, the feeling of air as it ran across my leg providing a moment’s surcease from the feeling of humidity.\u00a0 I could smell the books around me.\u00a0 Graphic novels really do have a smell of their own, I think.\u00a0\u00a0 There might have been a drip of something in the shower.\u00a0 Will have to call and get that fixed if it was a leak somewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I extended outward.\u00a0 I felt Doloise moving in the kitchen.\u00a0 She felt me.<\/p>\n
She walked into the bedroom, a glass of what looked to be ice water in her hands.\u00a0 She passed it to me.\u00a0\u00a0 “Water,” she said.<\/p>\n
See, there’s another literary bit.\u00a0 It looked to be ice water.\u00a0 She identified it as\u00a0water.\u00a0 I mention it because it was important.<\/p>\n
I drank anyway.\u00a0 It was cool and refreshing.<\/p>\n
Something wasn’t right.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Your wards are in place, but yes, you have come to the attention of the Dragon.”<\/p>\n
She said it so matter of factly I hadn’t even remembered to panic before I fell asleep once more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
See, there’s another literary bit. It looked to be ice water. She identified it as water. I mention it because it was important. I drank anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-three"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}