26
I dream I’m reading. It’s not like when I’m dreaming I’m running. I know where that comes from – the accident that deprived me of the ability to run. As a kid, I could just about outrun everybody – not in terms of speed (although I was quickish), but endurance. I could run and run and run, could push through fatigue, and feel like nothing could stop me. Driving me harder, further, and sometimes faster, was my stubbornness. When I was just eighteen or nineteen, sometimes I’d break into a sprint, like anxiety was a fuel I needed to burn off before it incinerated me. In sport, I was always…
25
I wake to a sudden weight that lands on my chest. Something has sprung on me and seized me. In the darkness, I shout and push, feeling immediate resistance. Then I thrust my hands out, flinging whatever’s on me to the floor by the window. I squint and I’m sure I can make out some shadowy form. More and more, consciousness takes hold. The last tendrils of sleep lose their grip on me. All the typical rationalizations kick in and, as they kick in, whatever I’m seeing fades. A dream. A dream. A dream. So cliché, but it’s the easy out, and the simplest way to classify what happened as…