It crawled around inside me like a spider, sometimes skittering through the raftboards of my consciousness, sometimes lurking in the darkness - sometimes so still it could go unnoticed for weeks, barely detectable as a slight queasiness in my stomach, like a rock sitting in mud. It's true nature was barely discernible; sometimes I saw it, caught a glimpse of something so piercing, so painful and so bright that I turned away before I was even aware of having done so.

But it was not brightness I was concerned with now. It was sedation.

"You need to find a Pediatric Dentist with sedation," she had said, empasizing the final word.

"Oh," I must have mumbled, dumbstruck, still struglling to picture that, to understand what it meant. Sedation? Elaine was three. What could sedation possibly mean for her? Like, actually going under as in unconscious? That couldn't be what she meant.

"Yea, uh huh," she nodded in response to my apparent assent. "If we don't get those filled, she might have pain and she can't sleep at night. Because she can't sit still, that's why she needs sedation."

That was it. I sat up from the reclined dentist's chair where Elaine lay on my stomach, lifted her off of me and set her on the ground. She had a surprising weight to her; I could feel the exertion it took to lift her. We left the whiteness of the examination room, turned right down the narrow hallway towards the reception area and Elaine's face started to tremble, her eyes to squish shut and her lips to pucker - I could tell she wanted to ask about getting a present. At this dentist's office they had a little bin of cheap plastic toys across from the front desk, like the green frog Elaine kept in her bath. We had gotten that here, at the last appointment.

"And, — we can get a present," I said to Elaine.

"Oh, do you want a baggy? A toothbrush?" the lady said from behind us.

I looked at Elaine, nodding.

"Yes, we want one," I said to the lady.

As we walked up the street to the N Judah stop, I could feel a tension in my lower calf. The muscles were poised, slowly tightening in anticipation of danger, but they were on the verge of spinning out of control and causing a spasm — that used to happen to me with some regularity; I would be swimming for instance, and my right calf would suddenly collapse, sending a sharp ripple of pain along my leg. I was grateful that that didn't happen so much anymore. Nowadays if I did get a muscle spasm it would be in my right foot, smack dab in the middle, the palm, Elaine would call it, the bottom, where your foot touched the ground. That pain, I could see how that pain could start, but it would somehow also spasm right up on through at the exact opposite spot on the top of my foot — like a rusty nail, or a spike.

It reminded me of the time I stepped on a nail sticking out of a board of wood in the backyard of who I can only vaguely see as Matt's paternal grandmother. We were all there, me, my mom, and Matt —

My train of thought was interrupted by the rush of traffic at the approaching intersection. I looked at Elaine. She had asked me to carry her up the block, she was a little rattled by the experience, I could tell, but also getting more and more excited about her toy, a plasitc slinky.

We crossed the street in a hurry to catch the N that was now strolling down 9th street, boarded it, sat down on a row of the red seats next to the door, and rode home.

My foot bothered me later on that evening. I had stepped next to the window to draw the heavy curtains we put in before Elaine was born when I felt a jolt of pain. I winced, and sat down on the bed to rub my foot, first gingerly on the bottom, then gently around in circles with my thumb on the top. I could feel something almost physical protruding there, a small knob in the fabric of my foot.

I thought again about that time stepping on a nail with Matt and his brother. The sun had streamed through the leaves in the oak trees back there, bathing the yard in a pale yellow glow.

We made water go uphill then, I thought.

Or no, that wasn't quite right. We had a hose. When I asked my dad, sometime later, why the water from the beach wasn't flowing up the ditch I made in the sand, he had said that water never went uphill on its own, it had to have something pushing it.

So, the hose was pushing it up that time, I had thought.

In the morning I took Elaine to daycare, first waking her up, which was always a process. I had settled into a rhythm of first giving her some warning, walking in her room to turn on the light on and rub her back, giving her time to wake up while I got her clothes ready from the dresser. If we were early enough to get to out of the door around eight, I might rush her, in order to get to daycare in time for breakfast. I checked my phone. 7:49. We could make it.

I lifter her up, carried her downstairs to the basement where we kept our bike, strapped her into her seat on the back, grabbed her helmet, lifted it over her head, said, as I aways did, "chin up," and clipped the strap near her neck. We had to do it that way because she had been pinched once, she was terrified of it now. I rode down Market Street to drop her off and headed to work after that. Something had been off about my bike, maybe the chain was catching; I kept feeling the petal jerk up against my foot. But it wasn't the normal clanking of the chain around the gears in the back, something was different about the way it was applying pressure, something felt sharper, more pointed.

That night, I awoke from a dream with a start. There had been waterfalls, and trees. I was running from something, something like a bear, but I couldn't really get a look at it, I was so frantic, scanning my field of vision looking for a path through the forest, the trees a blur — there. I ran. I stumbled on something, fell to the ground, terrified.

I looked down to see what had tripped me. It was a nail. A nail through the top of my foot. I had stepped on it through a piece of wood in the ground.

I woke up, blinking in the darkness, and walked to the bathroom, my foot still vaguely tingling from the encounter.

I looked at myself in the small, dirty mirror next to the sink. What had just happened? I thought. I put the toilet seat down and sat on top of it, bending over to examine my foot in for injuries. Was that just a dream, or...

I hesitated to ponder the other possibility. This thing couldn't be real. And yet, a small part of me suspected it was — there were things I couldn't rationally explain. For instance, there was that time in eighth grade, after the school dance, when I danced with Jennifer — she had just become my girlfriend at lunch near the old wooden picnic tables in the yard that overlooked the soccer field and was shaded by the large oak tree in the center. I wasn't sure if Jennifer proposed it or Rochelle did, and I wasn't sure what duties it implied, but coming to the dance was one of them.

I met her out in front of the big gym, the one they used for rallies and school assemblies. It lay some distance down from the building where we had home room together, past the small gym and down the asphalt path towards the field.

I was sick to my stomach. I didn't know what I would say to her, what I would do. I had no idea what it meant to be a boyfriend, and I was sure she wouldn't think I was good enough —

"Hi," she said, reaching out to grab my hand. I thought of all those times sitting next to her in the back of the bus, when she would let me rub my hands on her legs, above her jeans, feeling the ridges in the fabric, and then, sometimes, inside her shirt, slowly, slowly working my way up to her chest to fonder her small, sweet, soft and supple little boobs.

"Hi," I said.

We walked inside, and sat down on some of the bleachers near the wall. Rochelle wasn't here yet, so it was just us. I didn't know what to say.

"Did your dad drop you off?" she asked.

"Yea," I said. "He's going to pick me up at eight."

"Ok," she said.

The lights dimmed. We were sitting close to where the speakers were set up, holding hands. Mine were sweaty.

"Music ... makes the people ... come together," a familiar beat played over the speakers. I liked this song.

"Do you — do you want to dance?" I asked.

"Ok," she said.

We got up and walked near to the center of the now crowded gym floor. I started swaying my hips, and she reached around my back to pull me close.

"That was so funny what you said in Mr. Kopp's class," she said.

"Haha, yea" I said. I had gotten sent outside for that one.

We danced a few songs and then Rochelle came over. Jennifer wanted to talk to her, so I stood by myself next to the speakers. The music was loud, almost the loudest thing I had ever heard, but I didn't want to leave this spot because that would mean I might have to talk to Jennifer, and I became nauseous at the thought.

"Baby Bye Bye Bye," the speakers blared, and I could feel the air being pushed out from them with every beat, could see the virbration of the black felt on the front of the speakers.

I became entranced. There were colored lights flashing —they had been set up above the stage and played in time to the music, orange and then green and red, and finally yellow, bright, pure yellow, almost unnatural; it had a neon quality that pulled me in and made me forget about Jennifer and Rochelle, forget that my dad was probably now driving to the school, forget that I woud sit in the car and ride the forty-five minutes home silently, forget everything. I saw yellow and heard the pounding of the speakers next to me, which had receded to a droning in my awareness.

Somehow time must have passed in this state, because I became aware that The Backstreet Boys were no longer playing, it was someone else, possibly Christina Aguilera, although I always got her confused with Britney Spears. I loved Britney Spears. Ever since the girls had been talking about her when we went on the field trip to visit a college campus I had been fixated. They sang her song, "Hit me baby one more time," and danced the moves from her music video, jerking their arms and swaying their hips, stirring something in me that I could barely name, something down in my lower belly, something powerful, it had an intense gravitational pull.

Ever since then I would whisper the lyrics to myself in the shower, picturing the girls next to the yellow school bus, their hair swishing around in the sun from their movements, them laughing and giggling.

But this wasn't Britney Spears, it was Christina Aguilera. I started to feel sick and dizzy, so I walked over to the door in the back corner and went outside, out onto the black top where kids would play wallball at lunch. It was dark out here, and there were spots in my eyes from staring at the lights, so I was disoriented, unsure of my surroundings, and there was something else too, a noise, a strange noise, a high-pitched "Eeeeeee," conistent and unbreaking and somewhat loud, loud enough at least that it filled my awareness.

I started to worry. What was this sound? Was it real? Sometimes I heard sounds that weren't real, like the marching sound I heard when I pressed my ear against the pillow at night. But that sound would at least change, and in fact it would go away if I lifted my head up; this sound did not change, it's loudness didn't dim as I turned my head or covered my ears. I decided to walk to the parking lot and wait for my dad; if the sound was real, if it was coming from somewhere around here, then I wanted to get away from it.

EEEeeEEeeeeeEEEEEEEEEeeeeEEE

I began to detect small variations in the sound, barely perceptible changes in the tenor, so that it in fact formed a sheet, a surface of sound with a rippled texture, and not the solid wall I thought it was at first.

I had walked past the lunch yard now, where the thick, gnarled and broad oak tree normally shaded the lunch tables; but in the dark it took on an eery quality, its leaves creating sharp sections of darkness against the light cast from the bulb on the back of the gym. I watched the shadows move in the pale yellow light and I became afraid.

EeeeEEEeeeEEEEeeeeEEeeeeEEEeeEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeee

The sound had not faded. It would never end, I thought, and I would hear this forever and it would never stop. I started to feel sick. I turned away from the shadows in the yard and began to walk up the hill toward sthe center of school. I could still hear the music from the gym at least, though it was dim over the sound in my ears.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

It would never stop. I knew that now. I was broken, something inside me was broken and wouldn't work anymore, it was from the loudness of the dance, from the impurity of my thoughts, from the hard knot at the bottom of my stomach. It was punishment.

EEEEEeeeEEEEeeeeeeEEEEEEeeeeeEEEEEEE

It became much darker after I turned the corner past Room Seven and the light from the gym went out of sight. There was still the light out in front of the library, but that was down the hill and far away, and always dim besides.

EEEEeeeeeeeeeeEEEeeeeEEEEeeeeeeeeeEEEEeeeee

It was dark, I thought, but not that dark — not nearly as dark as it had been for Han Solo in the mining prision from the Star Wars book I was reading. Han had been taken deep into the planet's core, through so many branching mining shafts that no light whatsoever reached the prison. Han couldn't see anything, not even his hands if he held them in front of his face, but the Gamorrean guards had infrared goggles and could see everything.

I had just finished reading the part where they marched Han into his cell, him having to be led by a rope, following their grunting noises. They shocked him with their sticks and shoved him to the ground; he realized he was in a cell when he heard the door clank shut.

Yea, this is dark, I thought, but not that dark.

EEEEEeeeeeEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeee

"I don't believe that anyone doesn't want to be seen," David says. But this man, the man that I say that night — he doesn't want to be seen.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEe

I walked past the main parking log in front of the office; my dad always picked me up over by the library, at parking lot down the hill; it was easier to get on the freeway entrance from there. That suited me just fine because hardly anyone else went down there. At this time of night, it should be empty.

I felt a knot in my stomach churn and twist on up to my chest, just beginning to turn into a tightening at the base of my neck, near the adam's apple.

I didn't want to go home. I didn't want to see my dad pull up in the van, didn't want to say hi to him as I slid the back door open to walk all the way back to the row, not the two seats in the middle; didn't want to sit in the darkness on the way back, silently ruminating over what had happened.

I didn't want to go back. My throat tightened at the thought. Jennifer was still there.

I decided to walk down to the parking lot and wait there in the dark. That was when I saw him, I saw him on the way down there. He was perhaps the ugliest man I had ever seen, the side of his face was all mangled, ridden with lines; his left lip curled down in a twisted half-frown and his left eye seemed to pop out, forced open by the same pressure that shut his right eye and distorted the surface of his face.

I think that's why he didn't see me at first. I stopped walking as soon as I saw him in the distance standing near the library and instinctively crouched down. I knew something was wrong with this man right way, something was wrong, wrong wrong it wasn't good. I crawled sideways off the path, closer to the trees so I could hide. There was something next to him, but it was so blurry I couldn't make out what it was.

EEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeEEEEeeeEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeEEEEEEEeeeee

The noise was coming back. I started to cry, hunched over in the darkness next to the tree, holding my knees, grasping them, my toes curling in. What was that? What was it? The more I thought about it, the more I trembled. The thing looked like it might have been a person, a kid, but it was so swirled up and blurry I knew that couldn't be true. The man had had his hands on it, pushing it down, grasping it; his hands seemed to blur along with it. I became curious. How could his hand blur like that? It was like a movie, or the drawing on Time Warp, things couldn't really look like that.

EEEeeeeeeeeeeeEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEeeeeeeeeEEEeeeeeEEeeee

I moved slowly, quietly — I definitely didn't want him to hear me. I peeked my head past the bark of the tree and saw him standing in the distance. What was he doing? What was that thing? Was it still there? I pushed my head out a little farther from the tree. The thing was still there, it was swirling now, moving, and I could see something else, something... something pressing out from the inside; the thing was suprressing it, holding it back, it was as if there were a thin film on the surface, or a force field, holding what was inside down. The motion started to get more frenetic, more urgent, there was so much coming up from inside the thing, pressing, pushing, that the thing's surface almost bubbling from it. I looked closer to see what it was that was coming up from inside the thing and saw... hands, hands pushing up, desperately trying to push out of their prison.

EEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEeeEEEEEeEEEE

"Ah!" I cried, and fell back; the man let go of the thing and swirled around; as soon as he saw me he screamed, AAAAHhhhhhhhaaaaaHhhAAAAAAAAAaaaahhhhhhhhhaaaAHHHHHHHHHHH, and a blackness came out of his mouth, a true blackness; it shot towards me and curled around to enter my ear.

EEeeeeeeeEEEEeebEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEeeEEEEEeEEEEEEeeeeeeeEEEEee EEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEeeeEEEE EeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEeeEEEEeEEEEeEEEEeeEEEEeEEEeEEEEeEEEeeeEEeEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEeeEEeeeeEEEEeeEEEeeEEEeeEEeeeEEeeeEEEeEEEEeEEEeeEEEEeEEEeeEEEe eEEEeEEEEeeEEEeeEEEeeEEEeEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEeeeEEEeeEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeEEEEeEEEeeEEEeeEEEeeeEEEeeEEEeEEEeeEEeeEEEeEEEeeEEEeEEEEeEEEeEEEeeEEEeEEEeEEEEEEeeEEEeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEeeEEEeEEEEeEEEEEEEEEEEEEeEEEEeEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeee eeeEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEeeEEEEEeEEEeEEEeeEEeEEEEeEEEEEEeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I stood up from my seat on the toilet and looked again in the mirror. I rubbed my face. The marching sound hadn't been real — well, it ws real, but it was normal, it was just the sound my earlobes made as they pushed against the pillow frabic in tune with my pulse. But the man, the man... I don't know.

I stood up and walked back to bed, the gentle eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee of my tinnitus ringing through my ears.

"I'm awaaaaaaaaakkkkeeee!" Elaine called from her room next to ours.

I grumbled.

"I'm awaaaaaaaakkkkkee....." she called again. Kacie hadn't heard her yet; I slept on the side next to the old closet that was now Elaine's room so I always heard her first. I kept my eyes shut tightly, still clinging deperately to sleep. I hoped that maybe, this time, Elaine would fall back asleep

I'm aaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," she called, her voice getting more sing-songy with each iteration.

"I'm aaaawwww —"

"Then wake yourself up!" I shouted.

I heard her stirring in her room, climbing out of her toddler bed in the corner to walk the five feet or so to her door, at which point she would fling it open so that it banged against ours and bounced back.

I reached over to grab my phone from the nightstand and check the time. Seven-Thirty. Damnit. It seemed like it had only been a minute since I snoozed my Seven AM alarm. Now we would have to rush... or not, I thought, as Elaine climbed up the side of our bed and crawled to the top to get into our covers. We could just eat at home instead of trying to make it to school in time for breakfast. Then I could sleep a little longer...

But Elaine never lets us sleep when she's next to us. She's a constant ball of motion, perpetually wriggling, talking, pretending to be something — today she had brought her ratty old stuffed turtle, Rosie, into our bed and she was getting in and out of the covers, meowing like a cat, saying "meeeooww, this kitty wants to play."

My eyes were half-closed, and I turned over to face Elaine. She was playing in between me and Kacie, who I could see was still groggy, her headphones half-falling out of her ears — she always had to watch something in order to sleep, lately it was Grey's Anatomy, and so she slept with headphones on and curled over her phone. She claimed she hardly slept at all, maybe a few hours a night, and for a long time I didn't believe her — there's no way a person could function on that little sleep regularly, it strained the imagination.

Lately, however, I had been getting my own taste of insomnia. Every few weeks something would happen, I would get in a fight at work, or hear from my dad, or be holding a grudge against Kacie, and I would feel completely normal until I lay my head down on the pillow at night, and I would know, know, that tonight I would not sleep.

"Oh, you can't believe that," I would think, "then you really won't be able to fall asleep."

I would lay down on my side, absentmindedly watch someone stream Magic The Gathering on my phone, sometimes restlessly flipping between streamers, unless yamakiller was on, I could watch him for hours. There was something about his stream that I found comforting, you could tell it was just a bunch of guys hanging out, there was an ease to his interactions with chat, a spontaneity and a freedom from their normal awkwardness in the world.

I would watch as I felt tiredness slip over my body, shifting around the bed — it was still too early for Kacie to lay down, so I could turn from side to side, in fact I would feel compelled to; I hugged a pillow tightly and flipped on to my left side, only to become so uncomfortable minutes later that I had to flip over to my right, pulling the pillow over with me and shifting it around, feeling the difference in the presence it gave me as I held it.

"Ok," I would think, "this had better be the last time I flip over tonight. I need to be able to sleep tonight. I need to be rested for tomorrow." I would lay there, my head pressed against the pillow, my eyes squeezed shut, and I would begin to become aware of a sound, strange and yet deeply familiar, a gentle eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee that had been a background to my consciousness for many years, my tinnitus, which of course got worse the more I was bothered by it, so the thing to do was definitely not pay attention to it, just ignore it, let it go on by, it was nothing, just something droning on over there, pay it no mind.

EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeEEEeeEEEeeeeEEEeeeeeeeee

I would clench my jaw and feel a burning constriction begin to form in my chest, make its way up to my throat, and merge with the force in my chin that ground my teeth together.

I would turn over and shut my eyes tightly. I had to get to sleep. If I just kept eyes closed I would have to fall asleep at some point. There was no way I could stay conscious all night.

But then the chattering, the remorse, the relentless need to apologize, would fire up, loudly revisiting the day's events in my head, and I would turn over, trying to get it to just rest for a bit. Maybe I will end up apologizing, but for now let's get some sleep.

"Well, there are some circumstances under which I could see apologizing, but here I genuinely think I don't have anything to apologize for," a voice in my head would say, but I would feel behind its incredible locution a deep abiding fury, an anger that burned in my chest like a smoldering coal, or the embers left over after hours of burning wood in a campfire. At this point I would decide to repeat my mantra, to drown out the voices by force of will.

I would shut my eyes, deliberately forcing them closed, clench my jaw, and pour every ounce of my attention into the mantra.

The melodic repetition of the words would drone on, but my attention would wander, driven by the forces playing themselves out below, which would prove too strong to ignore. I would turn over, grab my phone, and head to the living room to sleep on the futon. Maybe a change of scenery will help me sleep, I would think. I wouldn't dare check the time, not wanting to know how many hours had passed.

Those nights, the nights without sleep, could go on like that for what would feel like an eternity, hours upon hours upon hours. Sometimes I would end up on the futon turning over and over, hugging the extra pillows out there, and sometimes I would stay in our bed, perhaps watch some match, or maybe just keep my eyes closed and lie still until I heard Elaine shout, "I'm awaaaaaaakkkkkkeeeee."

I got out of bed and walked over to Elaine's dresser to pick out her clothes for the day. Lately all she wanted to wear was her yellow dress, but it had a stain on it, so I rifled through the middle drawer to find something I could convince her to wear in its stead. Elmo Shirt? No, she hadn't worn that in months. I spotted her white dress with the butterflies — she liked that one. I pulled it out, then opened the bottom drawer to get her pants, socks, and underwear.

"Okay Elaine, let's go get dressed" I said as I stood up and turned back towards the bed, where she still lay next to Kacie.

"No! No! No!" she shouted, mock-breathlessly, as she began to kick her legs up in the air, bucking them like a horse, bouncing her back up and down against the bed.

"Hey! Hey! No kicking!" Kacie shouted. "Remember? No kicking on the bed. Come on, be good for Daddy while he gets you dressed."

"Look Elaine," I said, "It's your butterfly dress. Let's put it on."

Elaine slid on to my lap and I took off her jammy pants, changed her pullup from overnight, tapped on her left leg, saying, "Ok, let's put our leg in, ok, there we go, now let's do the next leg."

We finished getting dressed, and by then, Kacie was ready to leave the house. I had been hoping she would offer to take Elaine to school; it was Wednesday, and I had done it the past two days in anticipation of today because I wanted to walk to Magic after work tonight, and so I didn't want to ride the bike, without which bringing Elaine to school would involve taking Muni to Civic Center and all the filth that that implied. Thankfully, Kacie did offer to bring Elaine to school and I had the flat to myself for the morning, so I decided to get my daily meditation out of the way before leaving for work; that would free me up to get high later. I did some minimal stretching, reached my arms out sideways until I felt the pull in my lats, then inhaled deeply through pursed lips as I raised my hands above my head, held them there, reaching up... and then pushed the air out of my lungs with an audible "pheeewwww" as I dropped my arms back down to my sides. I sat on the futon, propped one of the stiff brown pillows up behind my back, straightened it, and then brought my hands to rest lightly on top of my knees, thumb and forefinger gently opposed. I took a deep breath in through my nose and filled my chest, expanding my belly as I became aware of the weight my hands imposed as they lay on top of my legs and tapped into a rocky stillness at the back of my mind.

"Hnnnnnnnnnnph," I inhaled.

"phhhuuhhhhhh," I exhaled.

"Hnnnnnnnnnnph."

"phhhuuhhhhhh."

I settled, calm. I watched my breath as it flowed in cooly through my nostrils and down my throat like a soft liquid, and then flowed out on top of my tongue, through my bottom teeth, over my lips and out my mouth. Time passed.

I felt muscles relazing all over my body as my pulse slowed with the deep, full breaths. A familiar tingling began to start up at the crown of my head and flowed downwards, filling me with a sense of well-being. "Ah," I thought. "This is why I meditate." I sat within that glow for a minute or two before I noticed a movement — thoughts were stirring.

"I should probably take the bus to work given it'll be close to nine by the time I finish meditating."

"I'll have to change that endpoint to return a 409 instead of a 400."

"If Nina tries to get me to work on that project I'm going to throw a fit."

"Well at least I get to play magic tonight."

"Oh wait — was Elaine's dentist appointment this week or next?"

This last thought was not without reprecussions — I felt a compression move through my body, felt my jaw start to clench and my brow begin to furrow. A tightness began to form in my chest. I worried that it would spread, move on up to my throat, where it would —

"Okay, focus on your breath," I thought. I consciously inhaled through my nose, feeling the cool flow of air again, and the thoughts subsided. I shifted my weight around on the futon, fluffed the pillow behind my back, and brought my hands to a new position this time, resting on top of each other, thumbs gently touching. I inhaled deeply, and exhaled slowly. I did it again, straining against the force I could feel now beginning to gather strength, pulling my awareness somewhere, somewhere else, it was like there was a ball somewhere off to the left and I needed to glance over to it, to see what it was, even though my eyes were closed and I would not allow myself to open them. But what if there was something there? No, that was preposterous. Maybe I should check my alarm, just in case I didn't set it before I started meditating. No, I know I set it. I saw it. What if I was confused? What if I didn't really set it? What if — I inhaled audibly through my nose and exhaled through my lips with a pheewww. The thoughts retreated, but there was a troubling new development — a numbness was beginning to form in my left jaw, which had started to clench around a point of extreme density. I started to worry. What if something was wrong? What if there really was something happening to me? What if this tightness, this density, this thing, made it's way down into my throat and started choking me?

"No, that won't happen," I thought. "Just calm down and focus on your meditation."

I inhaled deeply, and exhaled slowly.

Something flashed in front of my mind's eye and I twitched, physically recoiling from it.

"What was that?" I thought. But I knew what it was. I had seen it many times since Elaine's dentist appointment when they had revealed to us the extent of the rot in her mouth. But really I had known something was wrong for a while, or I should have known something was wrong. There had been a brown mass mushed on top of her back molar; I had assumed it was just some old bits of food, a raisin or something, but she had been refusing to let us brush her teeth, insisting on doing it herself; we would have to hold her down while she screamed, like we did when she was one, one of us pinning her against our legs, grasping her arms and keeping her back straight, while the other would gingerly insert the toothbrush into her mouth and scrub, saying, "It's ok Elaine, we just have to brush to your teeth, it will be quick," but that never had any effect, she would scream, tears would stream down her face. We had grown complacent, allowing her to brush her own teeth, thinking she was doing a good enough job, and why go through all that stress besides? She was going to be fine.

Only she wasn't going to be fine. I knew that. She needed to be sedated in order to fill out the holes in her mouth.

The image came again, but this time I indulged it, lingered on it. It was Elaine. We had gone to the dentist to get her cavities filled, they had injected her with something to make her fall asleep for the operation which had gone well, but now something was wrong and she wouldn't wake up. I saw her there, lifeless, still, and I started shaking her, wake up, wake up Elaine, wake up. This was my fault. I should have said something at the dentist appointment in December. "Um, excuse me," I should have said to the dentist who had only briefly looked in to her mouth. "Could you look again?" I think there's something wrong. Can you look at her back teeth?" I should have said something then so that it wouldn't have gone this far, so that she wouldn't have needed sedation and now be lying here —

I pulled myself away from the vision. It wasn't real, I knew that, her appointment at UCSF was next week and then we would see what they said. Maybe she wouldn't even need sedation.

I picked up my phone and opened my eyes to check my meditation timer. Ten minutes left. Ok, I could finish. I had to finish.

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, but I was unable to find comfort in the steady rythm of my breath. Something had been happening inside me, the tightness in my chest and jaw had merged, coalescing on my throat, on the side of my adam's apple. It was so tight it was like a tear, or a hole, something was swirling there, squeezing, compressing itself into a knot inside my throat.

"Oh no," I thought, "It's going to happen again." I was terrified. I was going to choke, I was going to gag, I knew it.

"Calm down," I said to myself. I tried to refocus. There couldn't be more than five minutes left in my meditation. I could make it.

Another image came to me, but this one was a memory, it was last night. I had been laying in bed watching porn in the dark, the kind I liked best, casting porn, where an agent would guide an aspiring actress through a sex scene. They usually blurred the man's face, which heightened the illusion that something real was happening here — the man didn't want to be seen, so he blurred his face. Only this time something was different, the girl was uneasy, she looked at the man warily; I was about to switch videos when it focused on the man's blurry face. "Why would it do that," I wondered, but then I saw something happening, something was pressing up from the inside of my phone, swelling it, now the blurry image was coming out, into the real world, it was the man, the one I had seen when I was thirteen, his face was all blurry, swirling, settling into lines etched across his skin.

"Ack!" I gagged. My throat was collapsing from the inside, something was pressing the muscles firmly shut around my windpipe. I opened my eyes, everything looked normal, the man wasn't here, but my throat was still tight. "Ack! Ack!" I was gagging uncontrollably now, nothing was wrong, nothing was wrong, I told myself, but something was wrong. I could see him now, the man, he was choking me, his hands were around my neck and his thumbs were pressing in on my trachea; his eyes gleamed with delight.

I struggled to breathe. I tired to pull his hands away but he was too strong. Things felt darker, darker, and then I saw the thing, just a swirl, a distorion in space, and I felt the pain coming out of it. The man was here for the thing. He had come to retrieve it.

"Ding Ding Ding," my meditation alarm rung. I was back in the daylight and I could feel my breath, feel it coming back. I inhaled deeply, enjoying the air. The man was gone, but that didn't matter. I had seen him, and I had seen the thing. I knew where it came from. It came from me — it was born out of the swirl of mindstuff that was my consciousness. It had formed in the darkness and grown stronger in these past twenty years. And the man? Well, the man was part of the thing, a manifestation of it. I just didn't know who had sent him.