13 July 2015

Ok, so great, there were no Walk related dreams last night, not that I remember. I was asleep before 1 a.m., which is often a feat for me, and I slept like a rock…right up to 4:15. I don’t remember what I was dreaming about, but I woke up with that feeling like I wasn’t alone, and looked toward the door just in time to see a person-sized shadow leave the room.

My first thought was that it was the Spouse Thingy, but dismissed that in less than a second because he wasn’t even home. And before I could begin to think again, the light changed; it was a brief flicker of light, as if someone turned a light off at the end of the hallway.

I was up out of bed and fumbling for my glasses in about a second, peering around the edge of the doorway, trying to see down the hall.

Nothing.

I listened, and hear Max meow softly from the other room, but the only sounds other than him were the fan in the room behind me and my own heart beat pounding in my ears.

Very carefully, slowly, I made my way down the hall to the front room; I needed to be sure the door was locked. I knew it was—the door has a dead bolt and the security door has a separate lock—but there was no way I was going back to bed without checking.

I looked in the living room, the kitchen. I flipped on the hallway light and checked my office, where Max was standing on the top of his tree, and peeked into the other bedroom.

Everything was quiet.

I still had that feeling that I hadn’t been alone.

Max jumped off the tree and made his way to me, chaperoned as I went into the bathroom, and then curled up on the bed next to my head. He stayed there for an hour; I couldn’t sleep, but he hung around until I was no longer staring at the doorway, trying to figure it out.

I was still awake at 6 o’clock, but feeling sleepy enough to drift off. I slept in fits and starts, 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there, until 9:30, when I gave up.

It’s still bugging me.

I know, logically and realistically, that there was not another person in the house last night and this morning. I knew that as I tried to fall back asleep. I’ve never discounted the possibility of ghosts or spirits because we frankly just don’t know what comes after this life, if people get stuck or can visit or not. I’ve felt the bump of a cat on my bed when there has been no cat on the bed and felt perfectly all right with the idea that Dusty was there to say hello, and I usually say hello back.

I also know, logically and realistically, that what I saw was likely the tail end of whatever I was dreaming about and had nothing rooted whatsoever in reality, but was that fuzzy area between being asleep and being awake. There was no one there; it was simply a shadow vaporizing from a dream.

I can’t explain the light.

The light is what makes me wonder.

It was strong enough to keep me awake. It was strong enough to keep me wondering. It was strong enough to make me worry…did anyone I know and care about die last night? Was someone hurt badly and some sliver of the cosmos was trying to let me know? Did someone long gone think it would be really funny to poke me awake?

I know.

It was just the trailing end of a dream.

Unless it wasn’t.