I sat on the edge of my bed in a cold sweat because only moments earlier I had found myself in the middle of a dream too wonderful to be real. I was floating it seemed, in an open sky wrapped in a warm, safe and peaceful mist. There was nothing to either side and yet everything that ever was or ever will be was there and I was in the middle of it and so very content to be there. The cares of my mu
ndane existence had no real value here. They were there yet I saw them now from a very different perspective. They were neither bad nor good. The experience lasted forever or no time at all it seemed. Time was so very different here. There were no seconds ticking on clocks, no days gone by or nights worth remembering. I needed only to consider a memory and it was full of life. As I became aware of the taste of infinity I heard a thundering clap and sensed a searing pain where my chest once should have been. In an instant I knew I was leaving this place and sadness swallowed me. I awoke with a tremendous start and snatched the semi automatic from the night stand. I sprung to my feet and searched the apartment for the man who had just punched my chest, returning life to my body. I searched for the fiend who had whispered in my ear that my time had not yet come. I hunted the intruder who had said, “The old you needed to die so the new you could live.” The apartment was empty. Fast forward now to 2012 and an older version of me standing in the shadows of an ancient fort. I whispered questions into the night searching for answers which could not be found in remarkable works such as David A. Roberts’ Heal Yourself in Time. It seemed the searching would never end much as the dimensions do not in Rob Bryanton’s Imagining The Tenth Dimension. There I stood all the same and listened. In the stillness of another night to come I would hear portions of the answer I was seeking and I would take my very first intentional step outside of my Nested Reality.
